The CSR activities at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have been focussed on healthcare programmes. During the ongoing COVID pandemic, the company which spent more than Rs 11 Crore on its CSR projects in 2019-20, has been taking multiple initiatives to help communities.
In this interview with TheCSRUniverse, Garima Dutt, who leads Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at GSK talks on quick response and action by her team and the implementation partners towards COVID related awareness programme.
Further, Dutt speaks on how her organisation is relying on the use of technology to eliminate duplication of work and save CSR Partners’ time and resources on reporting and data collation. On India’s CSR Laws, she says that effectiveness of CSR implementation lies in maintaining the balance between being rigid versus providing a nudge for more structure in CSR delivery by corporates.
Scroll down to read her full interview.
Interview with Garima Dutt, CSR Lead - GSK
Q: At GSK, you have been undertaking multiple CSR projects in healthcare. How has your CSR implementation been impacted due to COVID pandemic?
A: Our CSR team was agile to adopt new ways of working to deliver programme objectives. Our first priority was to address the immediate needs of communities where we have our CSR projects. Several families who relied on daily labour work, lost their source of income overnight and it was important to provide essential commodities to support these families and we acted swiftly on that front.There was also a need to ensure that the community members understood the precautions needed to keep themselves safe and in response.
To address this, we organised multiple awareness drives on COVID. Once these immediate needs were addressed, we moved to sustaining programme through our community action groups (CAGs). CAGs have played a vital role in ensuring continuity of our CSR initiatives.
Q: How are you continuing your CSR activities while adhering to the COVID protocols?
A: During lockdown, our community organisers engaged with the beneficiaries over phone and co-ordinated efforts through the community volunteers. As restrictions of the lockdown eased, we have been able to resume visits while following safety guidelines pertaining to use of mask and social distancing. Large community events have not resumed but that is being compensated through increased one-on-one interactions.
Q: What are the key emerging CSR opportunities and needs in the COVID scenario?
A: The pandemic has brought the focus on preventive healthcare like never before. People are adopting sanitary practices and this is a positive development for bringing to the fore dialogue on WASH. The pandemic has also helped challenge many beliefs around ‘effective ways of outreach’ and communities are seeing a much greater degree of technology adoption.
Q: What is the budget outlay for your CSR activities in the financial year 2020-21?
A: We have a CSR budget of more than Rs 10 Crore for this year.
Q: How your company’s focus area for CSR has evolved over the last 4-5 years?
A: Our CSR is aligned to our larger purpose of enabling people do more, feel better and live longer. We are focused on preventive healthcare and our largest initiative is focused on ‘Partnering India to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis’. We are working with the Government and the World Health Organisation(WHO) for eliminating this debilitating disease as a public health issue in India.
Q. How do you monitor your project impact?
A: GSK has partnered with Goodera and uses its platform for monitoring CSR projects. Real-time data entry and other use of technology has led to near elimination of duplication of work and saved our CSR Partners’ time and resources for reporting and data collation.
Q: The CSR has fundamentally changed after the CSR was made mandatory by Companies Act 2013. It has been 7 years since then. What are your thoughts on CSR laws in India?
A: The CSR law provides a guiding framework and has certainly brought more discipline in the way organisations plan their CSR interventions and report progress. Since the law came into effect in 2014, we have seen increased compliance with the CSR law across industries.
Q: What can be the changes in the current CSR provisions that can help corporates in being more productive and effective in implementation of their CSR activities?
A: We are headed in the right direction in terms of putting in place a framework for conceptualising, implementing and reporting CSR. The effectiveness lies in maintaining the balance between being rigid versus providing a nudge for more structure in CSR delivery by corporates.
Q: What are your suggestions and message to your corporate colleagues on building a strong CSR environment in the country?
A: Strategic partnerships between corporates was visualised as an effective means to achieve social transformation. I would urge corporates to look at this more closely since we certainly have opportunities or amplification in this space.
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