New Delhi, 10 August 2020: Leading home appliances-maker Voltas has spent more than Rs 10 crore on various CSR projects in the financial year 2019-20. The Tata Group company also exceeded its prescribed CSR budget of Rs 9.95 crore by spending a total of Rs 10.1 crore during the financial year.
The cooling machine specialist company recorded an average profit of Rs 497.07 crore over the last three financial years. Thus, the prescribed CSR budget, calculated as the 2 per cent of the average profit of last three years, stood at Rs 10.10 crore. In the year 2019-20, the company’s total profit before tax stood at Rs 744.31 crore.
The CSR Committee at the company is headed by Noel N. Tata who is also the Chairman of company’s Board of Directors. The key CSR activities that the company undertook during the year 2019-20 were spread in education, skill development and environment conservation.
The company engaged local community and made them a key part of their CSR project design. "For all its CSR initiatives, sustainability is at the core and hence and a lot of thrust is given on the community participation, engagement and ownership," the company said.
Education
The company lent a hand to institutionalising of English Language Development in the Zila Parishad ecosystem and focused attention to three vital and interlinked aspects of education -Teachers Training, Improving English Language Skills and Inculcating Reading Habits.
The project was implemented in a total of 138 schools where about 254 teachers were trained. A total of 8,934 children were benefited through the project.
Skill Development
According to the company, the CSR activities at Voltas are guided by core principles of sustainability and shared Development. The project approach encompasses three Es: ‘Engage, Equip and Empower’, which leads to building knowledge and developing skills for sustainable development.
Under the project, a total of 3,014 youth was trained with Prior Learning (RPL) course. Also, as many as 404 youth were trained in non-technical courses.The programmes were conducted in collaboration with company’s NGOs partners and Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs).
Voltas has over 31 partnership Skill Development Centres in 14 States across the Country. The Company not only offers the skilling programs related to Refrigeration and Air-conditioning (RAC) and Central AC, but also technical and non-technical trades (Business Correspondent and Business Facilitator (BCBF), Retail, and Sewing and Tailoring etc) based on the market demand.
The end-to-end intervention in partnership with like minded and renowned organisations like Tata Strive, GMR, ICICI, Tech Mahindra Foundation, etc., ensures complete technical support, well-equipped laboratories, training, On the Job training (OJT), assessment and placement support to students.
Water Resources Development
The company identified drought affected Beed district of Maharashtra to implement its Water Resource Development &Sustainable Agriculture project which benefitted around 13,000 people covering 3,435 families. Under the project, as many as 22 farm ponds were constructed and around a dozen borewells were recharged.
On projects of National Importance, Voltas also initiated an integrated sanitation project in Waghodia near Vadodara in Gujarat, in partnership with Tata Trusts. It has 4 components:(1) Household Toilets (2) School Sanitation (3) Solid Waste Management and (4) Menstrual Hygiene Management.The project emphasizes community participation and convergence with Government programs and schemes and is being implemented in 5 villages around Voltas Waghodia Plant.
