Khushi Scheme, Odisha (Free Sanitary Napkins for School Girls)

What is the Khushi scheme?

Khushi. The word means "happiness" in Odia; is a menstrual health and hygiene scheme of the Health & Family Welfare Department, Government of Odisha. Khushi was launched by then Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on 26 February 2018, and provides free sanitary napkins to girl students studying in Classes 6 to 12 in government and government-aided schools across the state.

According to the scheme's own portal at khushi.nic.in and the state's descriptions of it, Khushi covers roughly 17 lakh girl students at an annual outlay of about Rs 70 crore. Odisha State Medical Corporation Limited (OSMCL) procures and supplies the napkins; the schools are the delivery point.

Why the state built it this way

Khushi's design choice is that there is no scheme to join. There is no form, no registration number, no beneficiary card and no verification queue. A girl on the roll of a covered school receives the napkins in school. That decision is deliberate, the scheme exists partly to remove the embarrassment and the cost barrier at the same time, and any application step would have reintroduced both.

Stated objectives

• Improve menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls in Classes 6 to 12.
• Reduce the dropout rate among adolescent girls, which is closely linked to menstruation-related absence.
• Improve attendance and academic outcomes by removing days lost each month.
• Normalise conversation about menstrual health inside the school system.

Who is eligible for Khushi, and who is not?

A girl is covered if:

• She is enrolled in Class 6 to Class 12.
• She studies in a government or government-aided school in Odisha.
• She is on the school roll during the academic session in which distribution happens.

There is no income ceiling, no caste category restriction, no residence certificate requirement and no age band beyond the class range. Khushi is a universal in-school entitlement for the schools it covers.

A girl is not eligible through the school channel if:

• She studies in a private unaided school. Distribution runs through the government and government-aided school network only.
• She is in a class below Class 6.
• She has left school. Out-of-school adolescents and adult women are not covered by this channel. The ASHA-based subsidised sale route is the alternative for them.

Boys and non-students obviously cannot claim the benefit, but the more useful distinction for families is the school-type one: parents whose daughter moved from a government school to a private school often expect the supply to follow her, and it does not.

What documents are required for Khushi?

This is one of the shortest document lists of any Odisha scheme, and that is the point of it.

How to apply for Khushi and receive the napkins

1. Confirm the school is covered. The girl must be on the roll of a government or government-aided school in Odisha, in Class 6 to 12. There is nothing to apply for beyond being enrolled.
2. Speak to the class teacher or the nodal teacher for Khushi. Most schools designate a woman teacher to handle distribution so that girls have someone to approach without going through the general office.
3. Collect the monthly pack in school when distribution happens. Packs are handed out in cycles through the academic session as supply reaches the school.
4. Report a gap immediately if distribution stops. A missed month is almost always a supply cycle, and the headmistress or School Management Committee can escalate it to the Block Education Officer and the district health authorities.
5. For a girl who is out of school, approach the local ASHA worker instead, who sells subsidised napkins at about Rs 6 for six napkins under the parallel rural distribution arrangement.

How much does a girl actually receive?

The benefit is in kind, not cash. Each covered girl receives a monthly supply of beltless sanitary napkins at school. Coverage of the scheme's launch cited a pack of 18 napkins per month per girl, which is the figure most widely reported and is consistent with a full monthly cycle plus a margin.

What a family should expect in practice is a monthly distribution during the academic session rather than a single annual issue. The scheme's cost structure; about Rs 70 crore a year for around 17 lakh girls, is built around recurring monthly supply, not a one-off handout.

Khushi and the wider menstrual hygiene push

Khushi sits alongside two other things worth knowing about.

The first is the ASHA-based subsidised sale channel, which extends the reach of affordable napkins to rural women who are not in school, at roughly Rs 6 for six napkins. That channel is a price subsidy, not a free issue, and it is delivered by the frontline health worker rather than the school.

The second is disposal. A free-napkin programme at this scale creates a disposal problem inside schools, and school sanitation and incinerator provisioning have been part of the wider conversation around Khushi. Families and School Management Committees raising disposal arrangements with the school are raising a legitimate part of the programme, not an unrelated complaint.

How the supply chain reaches a school

Understanding the chain helps a parent complain in the right place. Odisha State Medical Corporation Limited procures the napkins centrally under the Health & Family Welfare Department, warehouses them, and pushes stock to the districts. The district health administration moves it onward to schools, where the headmistress or a designated nodal teacher records and distributes it.

Two consequences follow. First, a shortage at one school is a local distribution problem and the school and block can usually fix it, whereas a shortage across a whole district points upward to a supply cycle. Second, the scheme is run by the health department even though it is delivered through education department premises, which is why a complaint that goes only to the Block Education Officer sometimes stalls: raise it on both sides.

Common problems and how to resolve them

• No distribution this month. Almost always a supply cycle that has not reached the school. Ask the headmistress to confirm the last indent.
• Girl moved schools. Entitlement follows the school roll, so the new government or aided school takes over distribution. A move to a private unaided school ends the entitlement.
• Girl was absent on distribution day. Ask the nodal teacher to hold or reissue the pack; absence should not cost a cycle.
• Someone is asking for money. Khushi napkins are free. Any demand for payment, deposit or "handling charge" at a school is a reportable grievance.
• Class 5 or below. Not covered; the entitlement begins at Class 6.

Where to raise a grievance

Raise a Khushi problem in this order: the class teacher or headmistress, then the School Management Committee, then the Block Education Officer, and in parallel the district health administration, since supply comes through the health side of government rather than the education side.

For departmental complaints, the Health & Family Welfare Department contact published for the scheme is 0674-2380608, and the scheme portal is khushi.nic.in. Note that the scheme portal has had certificate and access problems for automated clients, so if the site does not load in your browser, route the query through the school or the district health office instead.