“They called Arunachalam Muruganantham the sanitary napkin maker and I, the napkin destroyer,” says Nitheesh N R with a chuckle. The 29-year-old was called so by a group of women in Mumbai when he introduced the sanitary napkin incinerator to them. Elsewhere, at a women’s college in Coimbatore, it was amidst catcalls that he started his session on menstrual hygiene and proper disposal of napkins. “I wasn’t perturbed though. At the end of the presentation the same girls came up to me to clear doubts. Perhaps they had a change of heart seeing a man talking about something that many women are ashamed to discuss in the open,” he adds.
Nitheesh is one of the directors of city-based InnovoSoft Technologies, which manufactures sanitary napkin vending machines and incinerators. Nitheesh has been holding awareness sessions on menstrual hygiene and disposal of napkins along with his cousin, Mydhili G, who runs Mydhili’s Group of Institutions. The sessions are being held in educational institutions, government offices and several establishments for the last two years now.
Nitheesh N.R. leading a class at a school in Mumbai
The venture was launched under InnovoSoft’s Arogya Vidya Bharat (AVB) programme, an initiative to ‘enable girls to stay hygiene by ensuring access to hygienic products and disposal options.’ “InnovoSoft’s focus has been education and we worked closely with Bengaluru-based Menda Foundation to launch smart classes in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. That was when we came in touch with many NGOs who pointed out the need to provide sanitary napkins. As we scouted for prospective suppliers we realised that disposal of napkins is a huge problem with most of them being thrown in the open or flushed down drains. We studied about incinerators in hospitals and then designed our own. Now, besides incinerators for commercial use, we market napkin incinerators for households,” Nitheesh says.
Creating awareness
At the classes, they educate participants on the composition of sanitary towels. For instance, each pad has plastic content equivalent to that of three medium-size polythene bags. “They should ideally be changed within three to four hours, whereas many use it for six hours or so and that leads to infections of the urinary or reproductive tract. And when you throw it out in the open it takes hundreds of years for a pad to decompose. We wanted to do something more than just selling the incinerator and so we make people understand the gravity of the situation,” says Mydhili.
InnovoSoft set up its first incinerator in the city at Police Training College, Thycaud, followed by the office of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau at Vikas Bhavan where they also held their first awareness session. “The feedback was excellent with many women employees placing orders for household incinerators. A couple of other police stations have also placed orders for the incinerators as part of becoming women-friendly,” she says. Recently, a napkin vending machine and incinerator was installed at Saphalyam Complex, Palayam, near the pay and use toilet run by Kudumbasree. Incinerators are already in place at Holy Angels’ Convent school and Fort Mission School. A few more schools have evinced interest in installing them.
Against all odds
The journey had its share of challenges, they say. In fact, they had set up a manufacturing unit in the city. But due to labour issues, it was moved to Madurai. Now, besides Madurai, it runs another unit as part of a consortium in Coimbatore. Nitheesh says Tamil Nadu is a bigger market for the incinerators, especially with many local self government bodies in the State insisting on public buildings and multi-storied complexes to install incinerators. “We need that change in Kerala as well. We are hopeful because we are getting more enquiries. Earlier, we held classes together. But now that the client list has increased, we take classes separately with Mydhili’s brother Vishnu Sathish also handling certain sessions,” says Nitheesh.
Mydhili G. leading a class for school children
The firm has clients in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, Nagaland, Punjab and Jammu-Kashmir. The AVB campaigns are being held through various clubs and NGOs. “Through Rotary Bangalore, we have supplied machines to Bhutan and Sri Lanka. We are sending them to South Africa and the Philippines as well,” Nitheesh says. The duo is pleased that many builders are incorporating incinerators in their designs. “We have orders for many new projects coming up in Kochi. We provide the machine in the colour they want,” Mydhili adds. Contact: 8089867281, 8848884294
How it functions
InnovoSoft’s household incinerator will burn the napkin, maximum three at a time, in three to four minutes. It can be mounted on the wall of the wash room and comes with an exhaust pipe for the smoke to go out of the room. It costs Rs 9,500. The machine used in schools is priced Rs 14,000 and up.
Fact file
Nitheesh, an engineer, co-founded InnovoSoft with Sindhu Reddy, a software engineer, in 2016. Mydhili is a computer science graduate and runs a boutique, catering unit, is into beauty and wellness care, and also does interior designing and landscaping. Recently the duo launched, e-TRY, a virtual trial room application using augmented reality.
An encounter with the people and places in the city
