With big initiatives, such as Digital India, Made in India and Clean India announced last year, India Inc. has responded very positively to the change of guard at the Centre. However, the ‘Sensex’ is yet to reflect ‘the’ spirit. Are we celebrating too much, too early?
The Indian Economy is in a relatively brighter spot in the global context as compared to where it was nearly a year ago. Looking at a macro-economic crisis at the beginning of the 2014-15 financial year, the tide has changed with the emergence of political stability at the Centre. The general mood too has turned upbeat.
Despite a marked buoyancy in consumer confidence, the growth in consumption across sectors has been rather muted as consumers are holding on to their purse-strings. As a result, the demand situation in the early part of the current fiscal was not very upbeat. But we are witnessing some recovery now and the overall outlook looks a little bit brighter.
[box type=”shadow” ]Our target is to saturate at least five of the shortlisted villages by the end of the 2015 calendar year and ensure that every single household in these villages have individual toilets. Also, we plan to construct school toilets in the villages during the 2015-16 financial year itself to make them ‘Open- Defecation Free’ zones.[/box]
Efficacy of Investments made under CSR is questionable. Can we find a way to close the grey areas?
True, many companies have joined the PM’s call and committing investments towards building toilets, but not much thought is being given to the maintenance of these toilets. And that is sad. Because a lot of these new toilets will be rendered useless if companies don’t focus on their proper maintenance.
That’s the reason why we have been taking cautious and calculated steps in our CSR programmes which are aimed at sanitation. Our initiatives are an intrinsic part of the Dabur CSR Policy and have been put in place after detailed consultations with the community. We have initiated the process of identifying schools in selected 2 villages in rural Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), five villages in Rudrapur (Uttarakhand) and two villages in Baddi (Himachal Pradesh). Separate toilets are being constructed for boys and girls.
Alongside, we are also developing a sustainable model for regular maintenance of these school toilets to ensure that these toilets are not rendered useless. To address this issue, we have decided to financially support the poor households in construction of toilets in their homes and also to educate them about proper use of toilet, regular cleaning of toilet and the need for proper washing of hands after using it. We are providing a cleaning kit consisting of Cleaning Brush, Sanifresh and Odonil as a token of appreciation to the families in whose households the toilets are constructed.
Dabur and its CSR arm, Sustainable Development Society (SUNDESH) have developed a project by involving community-based organizations with the following objectives to eliminate the problem of open defecation in villages.
The objective is not only to address health & sanitation issues of poor families, but also to improve social status of rural women. To achieve this, a number of initiatives such as financial support, awareness meetings and providing cleaning kit have been taken.
Through the village meetings, with Self Help Groups (SHG) and Kisan club members, Sundesh representatives motivate the villagers towards changing their habit of open defecation. In order to bring in a degree of ownership, we do not sponsor the complete amount. Instead, we fund only half the cost of constructing the toilet, while the balance is to be borne by the individual household. Also, the financial support is given to the woman of the household through an account payee cheque. The financial support is given in two instalments, with the first cheque given after the pit is constructed and the second instalment once the entire construction is completed.
In addition, Dabur has been working towards providing clean and Germ-free public toilets across the country. Under this, Dabur has undertaken massive awareness building campaign and special cleanliness drive across Sulabh public toilets in the capital. A team of Volunteers were positioned at Sulabh International’s public conveniences across the country. These volunteers disseminated the message that a clean and germ free toilet is a basic hygiene need of a human being for leading healthy life and to safe guard from common diseases. Under this initiative, Dabur and Sulabh worked towards promoting cleanliness across all public places like Metro station, Railway Station & Bus Stops, and encouraged people to join the project to keep our city Neat & Clean. We have covered 16 Sulabh locations of Delhi.
[box type=”shadow” ]At Dabur, Sustainability is not just a buzz word. It’s part of our DNA and is at the heart of all our initiatives and strategies. We understand that businesses exist to serve society, and sustainable development is the only way forward.[/box]
Dabur has also undertaken cleanliness drives across government schools in the National Capital Region. Under this special sanitation and cleanliness awareness camps were organised to educate kids about the tenets of cleanliness in their everyday lives. Cleanliness drives were also undertaken in the school toilets and students’ play area.
Sustainability
At Dabur, we identify environmentally sensitive species of medicinal plants and herbs, and develop methodologies to address their sustainability concerns. Our teams have joined hands with local NGOs across the country and have been involved in undertaking
special training programmes for farmers, villagers and tribal communities across the country to train them on sustainable and environment-friendly cultivation processes.
For protecting rare species of herbs and medicinal plants, we engage directly with the community through these NGOs. Our continuous engagement with the community has not only helped revive a host of these endangered species, but also establish a sustainable source of livelihood for these forest-based communities.
Our agronomical initiatives today cover India and Nepal. In India, the coverage of our agronomical endeavours is now spread over 13 states. Across these states, the total area under cultivation stands at over 1,411.50 acres, and this exercise now involves 1,674 beneficiary farmers who have been linked to our programme.
How would you define ‘Individual Social Responsibility’?
Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) is about an individual becoming responsible in his/her actions that impact communities outside their immediate circle of family and friends. We are seeing the youth today becoming more socially responsible. They are giving to charities, consuming green products, donating blood and giving more time and, at time, entire careers & lives for good causes.
[box type=”shadow” ]Under our ‘700 se 7 kadam’ initiative, `1 is collected from every pack of Sanifresh sold and the money collected is being utilised to build toilets for women in rural India. We have already constructed almost 600 household toilets in rural Ghaziabad, Rudrapur & Baddi.[/box]
< img class="alignright wp-image-28550 " src="https://cleanindiajournal.com/final/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/build-toilets-200x200.jpg" alt="build-toilets" width="167" height="167" />This change can also be seen on the social networks, on how they react to things and how they are more committed to working for a cause. Even companies and brands are now increasingly focusing on this social consciousness of today’s youth by launching special initiatives and programmes.
I would define ISR is an inherent part of CSR because without it, no CSR programme can ever be successful. If individuals feel more socially responsible, they will drive the agenda of change within both the community and the companies they work for. With ISR, CSR will be an automatic end result.
How would you correlate the educational architecture, employability & attrition ratio at work place? What steps have you taken to minimize the attrition ratio?
Our education system tends to be a bit skewed on theoretical & conceptual learning with weak linkages to application in the real world. A curriculum more aligned to challenges faced by Corporates in the real world, would help in reducing the settling-in time of B-school graduates significantly.
While the Premier / A-category B-Schools are aware of this and have started working on the same, there are many others who still have some way to go. In the recent past, there has to be more emphasis on industry interactions, live case studies, interaction with senior professionals from the industry,leveraging alumni network etc. But a lot more still needs to be done.
At Dabur, we try to bridge the ‘Campus-to- Corporate’ gap for our Management Trainees through a structured three-session intervention called C2C. Typically, our education system, right from nursery school to B-School tends to be individual performance and competition oriented, catalysing a Win-Lose paradigm at a sub-conscious level. Whereas, the Corporate life is all about Win-Win, collaboration, working in teams, and achieving shared goals without diluting individual accountability.
The government’s Skill India initiative, I feel, will also help make our rural youth, employable and also arm them will skills to make them self-employed. At Dabur, we have initiated the Swavalamban programme that seeks to make the rural youth more employable by arming them with the requisite skill sets. Being run in association with RUDSETI, this initiative will provide training to rural youth on three key areas of Sales, Merchandising and Promotion. The initiative will also seek to provide guaranteed employment to these youth, post completing their training. We have already trained 46 youth and they have been employed in Dabur, Britannia, Airtel and Tata Tea to name a few. We have targeted to train at least 75 rural youth this year under this programme.
In addition, we have also been running vocational training centres in rural UP, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and have been teaching a variety of skills to girls in the villages. In 2014-15 alone, 586 women have been trained on a variety of skills ranging from cutting-tailoring to beautician & salon, handicraft making, food processing etc.
How do you see the Indian market for new startups? What’s more to be done to improve the ecosystem?
Independent analysis and reports have stated that India is in the midst of a start-up revolution and is poised to be the world’s fastest growing start-up ecosystem, with the numbers set to grow from just about 3,000 start-ups in 2014 to nearly 12,000 in 2020.
While there are a lot of professionals leaving their corporate jobs to become start-up entrepreneurs, we are also seeing some these start-ups emerge as the preferred employers for a growing population of new graduates. And these start-ups are also adopting innovative approaches to attract and retain top talent.
However, what many of these start-ups lack is a proper scaling plan. Having an innovative idea is important but having the vision to take that idea forward and create a big enterprise out of that idea is equally important. The Government should also work towards creating supportive policies in terms of ease of doing business, tax incentives etc to help improve the evolving start-up ecosystem in the country. CIJ