New Delhi, 5 August 2020: Cement-maker ACC has exceeded its prescribed CSR obligation by spending more than Rs 25 Crore on various CSR initiatives in the year 2019-20.
The company for which the prescribed CSR budget was calculated to be Rs 23.9 Crore, ended up spending a total of Rs 25.07 Crore at the end of the financial year 2019-20, the company reported.
The average net profit of the Company for last three financial years stood at Rs 1194 Crore. Accordingly, the prescribed CSR budget calculated as 2 per cent of the average net profit stood at Rs 23.9 Crore.
As per the company officials, the company partnered for as many as 32 government projects under its CSR initiatives during the year. The Company’s CSR projects mainly focused in three areas - a) Sustainable Livelihood, b) Quality of elementary Education and c) Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).
Through its CSR interventions, the Company helped the disadvantaged and marginalised Sections of the society stakeholders. For instance, the education projects of the Company were largely focused on Government schools situated in remote rural pockets of India.
The scholarship initiative of the Company named VidyaSaarathi that had been rolled out in 14 districts of Company operations situated in 12 states of India, helped disadvantaged students who needed financial support to pursue their dreams of higher education.
The Company also continued to run two Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres to support people affected by HIV/AIDS through medical treatment and counselling. The Company has also supported patients by organising them in Self Help Groups and through life skills development programmes and providing nutrition support to HIV-infected as well as affected family members. Moreover, quality education was also being provided to school going children from the affected families.
The company structured its social development projects through ACC TRUST in alignment with the Global Sustainability Development Goals. While the community development interventions undertaken in previous years continued, this year the company widened its portfolio of projects contributing to the national vision of achieving ‘Skilled India’.
According to the company, it touched about half a million lives through its various CSR initiatives in the year our 2019-20 across 215 villages in the vicinity of its plants. Different CSR projects undertaken by the company are listed below:
Disha (Livelihood)
The Sustainable Livelihood initiative helped more than 41,000 people. This included helping farmer to enhance agricultural production by employing better means of agriculture and animal husbandry.
Vidya Utkarsh (Quality Education)
The Company disbursed a total of 370 scholarships under its ‘Vidya Saarathi’ scheme, helping economically disadvantaged students. Further, the company continued to support seven government-run Industrial Training Institutes under the Public Private Partnership Scheme with the Government of India. Further, a total of 202 schools were supported for quality education and 55 government schools were equipped with e-learning systems.
WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene)
WASH (Water, Sanitation and Health) initiatives under the CSR projects addressed community requirements for safe drinking water, better health through health camps and waste management in collaboration with municipal bodies.More than 3,200 children received access to better health and nutrition through the support provided to 68 Anganwadi centres. The Company also supported ART Centre and STI clinics and over 5,600 persons got benefitted through the OPD, counselling, testing and treatment for HIV/AIDS.
Flood Relief Work
The Company help local authorities in the flood impacted regions of Odisha and Bihar. The ACC Team along with channel partners reached out to affected people in both states. More than 4,400 families were provided relief kits and more than 800 people were provided medical aid in Bihar. Similarly, more than 2,200 families were provided relief kits and more than 800 people were rendered medical aid in Odisha.
