AMARAVATI : Around 40,000 women belonging to self-help groups in Andhra Pradesh are earning ₹500 per day by making face masks for the state government's programme to distribute 16 crore free masks among people across the state to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The government's programme to provide three masks to every citizen has given employment to the women at a time when the families are reeling under the impact of outbreak of coronavirus and the resultant lockdown.
The self-help groups are making the masks at the rate of ₹3.5 per mask, with each of the 40,000 women tailors earning ₹500 a day.
Instead of giving the mask orders to contractors, Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy entrusted the job to women's groups to give them an