‘Want condoms too?’: Bihar IAS officer to schoolgirl asking for sanitary pads

A senior IAS officer has courted controversy in Bihar over her “condom” comment to a schoolgirl during an event in Patna.

In a video shared on social media, Harjot Kaur Bamhrah, chairperson and MD of the women and child development corporation (WCDC) is heard publicly mocking a schoolgirl for asking the government to provide sanitary pads.

When the girl asks the IAS officer, “Can the government give us sanitary napkins at ₹20-30?”, Bamhrah replies that tomorrow you may ask the government to provide condoms too.

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“Is there any end to such demands? Tomorrow you can ask for jeans, then beautiful shoes and finally when it comes to family planning, you can say the government should give condoms too,” Bamhrah told the girl in Hindi at the event ‘Sashakt Beti, Samridh Bihar: Towards enhancing the value of girls in Bihar’ in Patna on Tuesday.

The girl replied back saying what is wrong with asking the government since they vote, and to this, the IAS officer blames the girl and makes a reference to Pakistan. “This is heights of stupidity. Don’t vote then. Become Pakistan. Do you vote for money and services?”

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To this, the girl retorts, “I am an Indian why should I?”

Further, Bamhrah said people should not expect everything free from the government. “Why do you need to take anything from the government? This way of thinking is wrong. Do it yourself… There’s a need to change the thinking… You have to decide where you want to see yourself in the future. You will have to make this decision yourself. The government cannot do this for you. Do you want to sit where you are, or on the side I am sitting on?”

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Bamhrah faced severe backlash on social media. However, she put the blame on “wrong reporting” despite videos clearly showing what she had spoken.

“It’s false, malicious and wrong reporting of an event. I am known to be one of the most vociferous champion of women rights and empowerment. Some mischievous elements against whom stringent action has been taken by WCDC for omissions and commission of wrongdoings, having lost at each forum, have now resorted to such low attempts to malign my reputation,” she was quoted as saying in an NDTV report on Thursday (September 29).