Nitish Singh - From Telecom Engineer to Padman

By BWA Envoy
November 11, 2021
2 Minutes Read

How this startup run by rural women is debunking taboos one pad at a time. 27-year-old Nitish Singh known as the real-life Padman of Begusarai by the people of Bihar is spreading awareness and busting menstrual hygiene barriers with his venture in the state. Nitish started his business named Prani Trading Co. under which he sells Livefree More sanitary napkins. His vision is to promote menstrual hygiene and safety among women and generate employment opportunities for rural women in the state.

After completing B.Tech from Jaipur in 2018, Nitish joined a telematics company in Gurugram as a software engineer. During this time, he came to know about the sudden demise of one of his close friend’s mother due to a uterus infection and that incident changed his life’s trajectory. He decided to educate and empower women regarding menstrual hygiene management. After a few months into the company, guided by the social responsibility he came back to Bihar and started his venture- of providing safe and inexpensive pads manufactured by rural women. According to a report by FSG on ‘Menstrual Health in India’, “There are over 355 million menstruating women and girls in India, yet millions of women across the country still face significant barriers to comfortable and dignified experience with menstrual health.”

Nitish says, “Poverty has a different story to tell when it comes to using sanitary napkins or any other period care product. In rural areas, women do not have access to menstrual hygiene products or have accurate or complete knowledge of types and methods of using them. They are unable to afford such products so they rely on reusable cloth pads. These cloth pads are unsafe to use and lead to various infectious diseases. Therefore, we offer quality products at economical prices so that the hygiene needs of women and girls can be met even in the most marginalized and hard to reach populations of Bihar.”

Nitish currently has eleven employees working under him, out of which eight are women involved in the manufacturing of affordable sanitary pads. He is also working with his employees on spreading awareness regarding feminine hygiene and reproductive health with the NGOs in the district working on women and child health issues. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Nitish provided 600 packets of sanitary napkins to quarantined women in almost every nook and corner of the district Begusarai. Not just content with manufacturing sanitary pads, he plans to extend his product line with more period care products in the future. Despite facing hurdles and glitches, Nitish is hopeful that his business will help society see menstruation as a biological phenomenon debunking myths and taboos surrounding it.