M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, May 2: A doctor’s wife is fighting for better health of women and adolescent girls in Palamu’s Panki assembly constituency.
Asha Prakash, the wife of Dr Amit Prakash, is distressed to see that women and adolescent girls suffer from anaemia and are unaware of its hazards to health.
Speaking to media persons here today, Asha Prakash said, “I believe a lot of work can be done for the general health of women and young girls. The first thing is they must be made aware of the value of health and how to overcome anaemia.”
She said the intimate hygiene of women and girls is another delicate issue as many of them fail to buy sanitary pads due to their cost.
Asha Prakash said the state government should start the distribution of sanitary pads at its Aanganbadi centres and at other institutions like public distribution shops.
She said the next important issue that affects women and girls after their health is education. She would be working for women and adolescent girls to get some sort of skill with whatever education they have to eke out their living.
She said there are hundreds of women self-help groups called Sakhi Mandals but she added: “Members of the Sakhi Mandal visit either banks or customer service points and there for want of banking literacy these women just fall in the trap of the middlemen who extract benefits of their ignorance or unawareness to the banking procedure.”
Asha Prakash said she would be working for these women’s basic minimum handling of their credit and debit works for their Sakhi Mandal.
She said she would like to see younger voters, be they male or female, spend time in the playground and sports as well can do a lot of good to them.
On being asked if she has any aim to get into politics, Asha Prakash said, “I have been in social service in my Panki assembly constituency since the days my father-in-law used to be the medical officer here in this region. I believe I have an obligation to serve the people of the Panki constituency and for which politics or political field is most important.”
The Panki Assembly constituency has never seen any serious woman contenders in the past 40 years or so and if Asha Prakash makes her political journey from here then she is set to upset the political applecart of many seasoned male politicians. She gives meaningful speech and she has no hidden agenda for her.
