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Winning smiles…touching
hearts
Long before corporate social responsibility
found a place in the corporate lexicon, it
was already textured into the Group's value
system. As early as the 1940s, the late Mr.
G.D. Birla espoused the trusteeship concept
of management — investing a portion of
the company's profits for the larger good
of society. The late Mr. Aditya Birla went
beyond chequebook philanthropy when he brought
in the concept of 'sustainable livelihood'.
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For over 50 years, Hindalco has worked in
the hinterlands of India to better the quality
of life of the underprivileged sections of
society.
Today, we reach out to millions of people
in the villages, of whom more than 60 per
cent live below the poverty line. Their needs
include: access to water, agriculture and
sustainable livelihood, healthcare, and education.
These four areas form the focus of our efforts.
The company also works to bring about social
reform through widow re-marriage and dowerless
marriages.
We work in partnership with government agencies
and the beneficiaries to provide these necessities
and encourage social reform.
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Focus areas
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Health
care
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Medical camps: Taking
mobile medical units and providing ambulance
service to remote areas.
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Health facilities:
Setting up well-equipped and professionally
manned health centres at several locations.
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Regular health camps:
Providing family planning, mother and
child care and specialised camps for
eye care and for cataract; coordinating
regular pulse polio immunisation drives;
and promoting the awareness, prevention
and treatment of malaria, water-borne
diseases, TB, HIV/AIDS, and others diseases.
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Balwadis: Providing
for the primary education of underprivileged
children.
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Adult literacy:
Providing formal and informal
classes and active support to the
government's mission to improve rural
literacy levels.
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Merit scholarships
/ Schemes: Support female students
for educational endeavours.
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Educational support:
Contributing uniforms, textbooks
and classroom equipment and undertaking
school building construction and maintenance.
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Skills
training / capacity building
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The Aditya Birla
Rural Technology Park (Muirpur, Uttar
Pradesh, India): Runs over 70
training programmes in diesel / hand
pump repair / maintenance, electrical
repair/maintenance, bee-keeping, tailoring,
knitting and agriculture-related programmes
and encouraging self-employment through
income-generating projects.
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The Yashogami Skills
Training Centre (Radhanagari, Tarale,
Maharashtra, India): Trains women
in skills such as rexine handicraft,
fashion design, tailoring, food processing,
pottery, lamination, electronics assembly,
zardozi, jewellery design, papier
mache, rangolli, and fabric design.
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Women's empowerment
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Self-Help Groups
(SHG): These programmes involve
over 11,000 women from rural communities
around Hindalco units.
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SHG activities:
Micro credit and micro finance schemes,
entrepreneurship building, oil-processing
units, tailoring centres, horticulture
and nutrition gardens, diesel and
hand pump repair, vermi compost production,
mushroom cultivation, food processing,
etc.
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Awareness building:
Health and sanitation, family
planning, literacy drives and microfinance;
facilitating government loans for
small-scale enterprise and rural insurance
schemes, etc.
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Social causes:
Promoting dowerless marriages
and widow re-marriages.
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Agricultural support
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Irrigation schemes:
Land brought under irrigation
with better yield and multi-cropping
methods.
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Watershed development:
Hydel towers, drainage canals, wells,
check-dams, pedal pumps and harvest
tanks.
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Training: Field
schools train local farmers in modern
agricultural techniques for higher
crop yield; introducing lac cultivation,
post-harvest technology with safe
grain storage through an integrated
pest-management system, floriculture,
horticulture and kitchen gardens;
shifting from mono to multi cropping
patterns and distribution of high-yield
seeds.
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