Fact that we still missing the Act : Still far from the destination

All smart seems to be educated but all educated don’t seem smart

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

– by Albert Einstein

Goodness is the only investment that never Fails.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) – an act of an initiative by the Government of India just to create a healthy, wealthy and sustainable India. CSR policy functions as a self-regulatory mechanism whereby a Business Monitor and ensures it’s active compliance the spirit of the law, ethical standard and national or international norms.

Beyond the interest of the firms, it is the action that appears to progress further for some social good. The aim of the corporation is to increase public relation in a positive manner and for a good image. Well if we look from the right prospective defining CSR is not that complicated. People, planet and profit or the triple bottom line is enough to evaluate CSR. The CSR activities are followed by some engagement plans in reaching desired audience. A corporate social responsibility individuals or team plans the goals and objective of the organisation. As with any corporate activity, a defined budget demonstrate commitment and scales programme related importance.

In recent years the concept of CSR has grown for the upliftment of society and environment. CSR is often discussed at the highest level of companies. Many companies in all sectors are working in all defined direction by the government of India and taking initiative for social responsibilities for which some of them have won awards for their excellent work.

There are some other examples of the excellent CSR initiatives executed by following corporates:

• Mahindra and Mahindra has been doing brilliant work on CSR from past 3 years to till date. Focused on the girl child, youth and farmers through programs in the domains of education. Mahindra Pride School provide livelihood training to youth for socially and economically disadvantaged Community and trained over 13000 youth in Pune, Chennai, Patna, Chandigarh and Shrinagar. The Mahindra have a powerful implementation, ‘The Life Line Express’, that take medical treatment to far flung communities.
• TATA Powers focused on education, environment, communities, development, health safety, security, source and energy conservation, women empowerment, skill development and livelihood generation. They spend more then 2% annually on their CSR. TATA Steel’s initiatives runs across the states like in Jharkhand, Odisa, Chattisgharh covering nearby 500 villages. Total spendings nearly 171.46 crore which is 2.04% of the annual net profit. Where TATA motors are also coated in the big achievement list. and employability they spent 18.62 crore in 2014-2015, despite reporting a net loss.
• The L&T took initiatives for water, sanitation, education, healthcare and skill building. They also have health programmes focused on reproductive health, tuberculosis, leprosy control and testing centres for the HIV/AIDS.
• GAIL Has established GAIL Institute Skills (GIS) which addresses the issue of unemployment and skill gap by providing job-link skill training to local youth of the communities and around its areas of operations.

The CSR initiative doesn’t stopped here. There are some more companies like Bharat Petroleum, Infosys, Maruti Suzuki, Indian Oil, Ultra tech and around 216-300 in numbers who are standing for ‘SPENDING IN RIGHT DIRECTION’.

‘Spending in right direction’ encompasses dual objectives-pursuing benefits for the corporation and for society too. But are these initiatives enough for the upliftment of our country? Are we all really creating a smart society or county??

‘All smart seems to be educated but all educated don’t seem smart’

The gender equity and the caste equity are the big question marks in our country. We are still lagging behind the gender differences. We are not only concerned about the particular gender like male or female but there is also a particular section who really want to rise up and want rights to live a normal life in our society. But are these rights really helping them to live a normal life? We should spread awareness that they also belong to the same specie. The awareness which speaks up loudly that it is not about gender identity, it is about human identity which is to say the truth.

An excellent example of ‘Moksh-Group’ the students of SIRT, Bhopal who gave outstanding dance performance on transgender at IIM Indore. This is the small initiative by the students who gave us a lesson and encourages us for gender equality.

Definitely the corporates are doing commendable work and their work also deserves an applause but still they are not noticing the major point like gender inequality and caste inequality.

Only education is not enough. People really needs to change their perspective according to what they are, but not according to caste or gender. We all know that India is the land of customs and traditions but there should not be any discrimination on the basis of people, place, methods, ideas, region and religion. We really have a strong hope that CSR will surly eradicate the social evil such as gender inequality and caste inequality. CSR is doing a lot good but if we as a county will not co-operate, we will remain the native of developing country instead of the developed country.

By Anamika Tiwari

Student | Researcher

Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Corporate Social Responsibility

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