Akshay Kumar hails the decision with ‘tears of joy’- Sanitary napkins exempted from GST.

In a landmark move, sanitary pads on Saturday were exempted from goods and services tax post the GST Council revised the tax rates on several products of daily use.

While GST on sanitary pads was reduced from 12 percent to zero, several other products including small televisions, refrigerators, hair dryers, footwear, water heater and food appliances were a part of the products’ list on which GST has been reduced.

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar was among the first ones to react to the news.

He took to Twitter to hail the decision and wrote, “One of those days when a news brings tears of joy as a cause close to ur heart gets fulfilled.Thank you, #GSTCouncil,for understanding the need for menstrual hygeine & exempting sanitary pads from tax. I’m sure crores of women in our country are silently sending gratitude ur way .”

The actor has been for long siding with the zero GST on sanitary pads.

In fact, Akshay was asked if he wanted to reach out to the government witih his film Padman to cut down on GST rate, the actor had said, “Why just cut down on GST? I think women should have free access to sanitary napkins. This is their basic necessity. It is about menstrual hygiene and not luxury.”

“It is unfortunate and I am ashamed to say that 82 percent women in this country have no access to sanitary pads and they are mistreated during those five days of their menstruation period. This is unfortunate,” .

Earlier this year, Akshay narrated the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham, who introduced the low-cost sanitary napkins in India, in “Pad Man“.

The film was produced by Twinkle Khanna and directed by R. Balki. It featured Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor along with Akshay.