Even as we in India have made a mark on the globe as a reservoir of intellectual capital, as a nation we are grappling with quality of life challenges. More so in the hinterland where poverty continues to stalk nearly 26 crores of our rural populace. From independence to date we have come a long way and we have to go long way as well. Regrettably our human development index is at an abysmally low - 127.

For over several decades, your company has been engaged in community work, concentrating largely in the rural areas close to your company's plants. The scope of our community projects extend across the villages around our plants at Renukoot (UP), Hirakud (Orissa), Muri, Lohardaga (Jharkhand), Belgaum (Karnataka), Alupuram (Kerala), Kalwa, Taloja, Durgmanwadi (Maharashtra), Belur (West Bengal) and Silvassa (Dadra & Nagar Haveli). Your company's social projects are carried out under the umbrella of the "Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development", under the leadership of Mrs Rajashree Birla, your Director. The Centre provides the strategic direction for the Group's community work, ensuring performance management and measurement of the impact of its initiatives as well.

In working with the communities, we gauge what are their real needs. What we discovered is that people's first need is to have potable water, second - agriculture and ways of sustainable livelihood, third - health care facilities, fourth - education and fifth - infrastructural facilities. These are our areas of focus, within which we have prioritized education and water projects.

For the year 2004-05, we have made significant progress as indicated.

Health Care

• Conducted 638 medical camps at which nearly 60,000 villagers were medically examined and those who were afflicted, were treated for their ailments.
• Hundreds of villagers were checked for their eye sight of which 871 senior citizens were provided with intra ocular lenses.
• 1,812 patients diagnosed with tuberculosis were treated.
• Malaria and TB detection /prevention camps benefitted around 1,200 persons including 500 inmates of the Sambalpur Jail in Orissa.
• 221 patients were treated for leprosy.
• 22 physically challenged persons were provided artificial limbs while 39 persons underwent reconstructive surgery.
• 13,528 patients were treated in the out-patients departments.

Mother and Child Care

• Immunized 74,202 children against polio.
• 6 family planning camps organized in which 2,402 women and 38 men participated.
• Pre and post-natal care was provided to 15,342 women.
• 7,123 women were treated for sexually transmitted diseases and reproductive tract infections.

Education

• Merit Scholarships earned by 167 students.
• Support provided to 135 underprivileged students.
• Over 7,000 children benefited from balwadis, coaching centres and evening classes organized by your Company.
• Training programmes organized for 806 teachers.
• Education material distributed to 6,230 students.
• Around 1,200 adults are benefitting through a Literacy Drive where trained union representatives of your Company have volunteered as teachers.
• Career guidance programmes to local schools have helped advise 250 students and several youth have been sponsored to ITI vocational training courses.

Sustainable livelihood

• The Aditya Birla Technology Park continues to bring in transformation in the villages:
  • More than 72 programmes conducted on repair and maintenance of diesel pump sets, electric and electronic goods, hand pumps as well as on bee keeping, making ropes, tailoring and knitting.
  • 312 rural youth were trained for self employment.
  • Training in crop diversification, floriculture demonstration, integrated pest management and post harvest technology has provided agricultural support to more than 500 farmers.
• Watershed Development projects ensure optimum use of land and water resources. The projects include installation of hydel towers, erection of check dams, water channels and digging of wells.

Women Self-Help Groups

• Micro credit savings and social security through insurance schemes have encouraged financial independence.
• 228 Self Help Groups have enabled the empowerment of women through training and income generation.

Social Welfare

• 15 couples were united at a mass marriage programme.
• 12 widow remarriages were organised.

Infrastructure

• On going community support in the form of better roads, potable water systems, bio-gas plants, construction of dry toilets, water storage tanks, bore wells, tube wells and animal sheds.
• Panchayat and school buildings and community halls have undergone repair and maintenance work.

Of the 71 villages that we have committed for conversion into model villages, 49 have already been transformed.

Your Company treats its social projects with the same seriousness as its business projects. Your company has a one year plan and a three year rolling plan, with milestones, timelines and measurement mechanisms. At the plant level the head of the plant is responsible for the CSR activities. He and his team constantly apprise the Centre and the Business Director of the progress made.

In a sense CSR at your Company is very much on the radar of the top management. Our Board and all of our employees are fully committed to the Corporate Social Responsibility programme. In our own small way, we are endeavouring to build a better and sustainable way of life for the weaker sections of the society, making a difference actually. In doing so, our endeavour is also to raise our country's human development index.