Safe-sex campaign on Games wagon

Delhi has decided to install condom-vending machines to make the Commonwealth Games “totally safe’’. But the drive isn’t stopping there. The village dhaba will serve the safe-sex recipe, too.

The Centre plans to make condoms available in 70 lakh retail outlets within a year, the majority of them in rural areas. Grocers, workshops, hotels, roadside vendors, besides dhabas, could be the new channels.

The move has been prompted by worries about the increasing HIV/AIDS cases in rural areas. Around 2.5 million people are estimated to be infected in the country overall. Women account for a million — half of them in villages. Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab have the highest number of cases.

“Availability and acceptability are the greatest hurdles to promoting condom use. By making them available in places like kirana (grocery) shops or dhabas, we will be able to tackle the problems. Once you get condoms from places where you buy everyday stuff, the shame factor will come down,’’ said an official of the National Aids Control Organisation (Naco), the government agency tasked with containing the disease.

All brands of condoms will be made available in the new outlets, but priority will be given to Nirodh, manufactured by the Centre-owned Hindustan Latex Ltd.

Self-help groups (SHGs) will help increase awareness about the use of condoms in particular, and HIV/AIDS in general, under a Naco proposal that the rural development and tribal affairs ministries have accepted.

“We have decided involve the rural development ministry as this is one ministry most accessible to rural homes. Villagers tend to be more open to its representatives as they believe the ministry gives them many benefits (under various ministry-run welfare programmes such as rural job scheme NREGA),’’ the Naco official said.

The SHGs, supported by the ministry, are among the groups that help implement the development plans. Naco will train around 23 lakh SHG members to spread awareness about the disease among rural women.

“The prevalence of HIV is higher in urban areas. But what puts the rural people more at risk is their low awareness level,” the Naco official said, adding the information gap was particularly alarming among village women. The concern comes against the backdrop of reports that more rural women were getting infected.

According to Naco, the epidemic is more widespread in cities, greater among men, decreases with increasing education and is found to be highest among women whose spouses work in the transport industry. Truck drivers are known to be more vulnerable and condom sales in highway dhabas are aimed at this group.

The government is also planning to introduce female condoms in rural areas in the next phase. “It will be even tougher but we want to try out,’’ said the Naco official.