This evening at a jam-packed but proud public event at the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation’s (MSRTC) old bus depot at Mumbai Central, Akshay Kumar and Aditya Thackeray inaugurated the city’s first sanitary pad vending machine. Maratha buglers blowing the tutari trumpeted the moment when this social service went public and a huge roar went up when the Bollywood superstar walked up to the pad vending machine in the company the young Shiv Sena leader. Behind, ST buses rolled in from Sangli and Satara and other waited to depart to Kolhapure and Pune.

According to Aditya, Akshay and he are setting up 60 sanitary pad vending machines (30 each) across Maharashtra and the Rotary Club is giving them 40 more. To start with, they will be placing 30 machines in important bus depots of the MSRTC so that women traveling to and from far off places in the interiors can make use of them. The rest will put up at other such important locations.

RECOMMENDED READ: “PADMAN IS PART OF A MOVEMENT”, SAYS TWINKLE KHANNA

The message was clear: the sanitary pad vending machine was not a niche service meant to be installed at, say, a modern Metro railway station in suburban Mumbai because women using this railway facility could afford to buy pads. It was meant for the convenience and comfort of those from economically weaker sections who were taking the humble ST bus in remote villages and traveling great distances over many hours.

https://twitter.com/PeepingMoon/status/964118942720647169

Akshay, whose latest release PadMan is a mainstream commercial Bollywood film with a powerful message for menstrual hygiene and the necessity of sanitary pads, is apparently not looking at the box office with this film. He seems to be making it a mission to promote the cause and will continue to do so long after PadMan is forgotten. Just as he is doing with his campaign against open defecation in the country that was the subject of his 2017 social drama Toilet: Ek Prem Katha.

Check out the pictures here:

[gallery size="full" td_select_gallery_slide="slide" td_gallery_title_input="Padman_Vending_Machines" ids="39693,39694,39695,39696,39697,39698,39699,39700"]