Muruganantham with members of a self-help group in Uttar Pradesh

Chennai, Nov. 24: The seeds of the idea came from his wife, but he conceived and delivered. Now his baby has brought home a prize.

Last week, school dropout A. Muruganantham, who sparked a hygiene revolution in Indian villages through a machine that churns out cheap sanitary napkins, won a National Innovation Foundation award for his invention.

But the 43-year-old from Coimbatore, who received the prize from the President, is more excited that his invention has freed poor women from the tyranny of unhygienic menstrual periods.

“Whereas napkins made by MNCs cost at least Rs 100 for a pack of five, the napkin made by my machine costs just 50 paise per piece. The semiautomatic machine that I invented makes 1,000 napkins in eight hours, runs on 5 amp power connections and costs just Rs 85,000,” says Muruganantham, who couldn’t complete schooling after his father died in an accident.

His machines have also made sure that self-help groups (SHGs) that bought them take home tidy profits.

“We sell each napkin for Rs 2 and, at the of the month, each member of our SHG takes home at least Rs 3,000 from the profits,” says G. Kamala, who heads an SHG in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu.

Thanks to the publicity given to his invention by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), dozens of self-help groups across the country placed orders for the machines. Muruganantham supplies them the raw material — pinewood chips imported cheap from America.

Easy on the pocket, the napkins are also biodegradable, another reason for their popularity.

When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came to know about Muruganantham’s invention, it placed orders for supply of the machines to Bangladesh and several African countries.

“It was only after a local college professor told me that MIT was the world’s leading inventor that the significance of its gesture sank in,” Muruganantham says. “I felt thrilled and honoured.”

NIF chief innovation officer Vipin Kumar felt Muruganantham’s invention made not just economic sense but had also given a new sense of freedom to poor rural women who had to resort to unhygienic methods during periods. The NIF also helped Muruganantham get a patent on his invention.

So who gave him the idea? His wife, he says, though she wasn’t aware at the time that she had lit the spark. She also turned out to be his first salesgirl. “It was only when I saw my wife using dirty clothes during her periods did the idea strike me. Since I had worked in a welder’s shop, I designed the machine and after much trial and error got it right,” Muruganantham recalls.

That was sometime in 2007. But when he tried selling the napkins to girls from a women’s college near his home, they showed no interest. Dejected, he dumped the napkins in his house. But his wife found them to be so good that she managed to sell the entire lot and asked him to manufacture more.

“I then realised there was a market for the napkins and my machine as well,” Muruganantham says. “On the suggestion of a professor friend, I sent a summary of the working of the machine with photos to the NIF. They virtually adopted me.”