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Collaborate for Impact- Minister of State, Ministry of Corporate Affairs urges the corporate sector
Dec 18, 2018

“The corporate sector has been playing a key role in enabling social inclusion and development. Companies with common vision and development agenda can collaborate and pool in resources for high impact projects.” said Mr PP Chaudhary, Minister of State, Ministry of Corporate Affairs. He was speaking at the Special Session of the National CSR Summit 2018, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi today. Quoting the CSR spend of corporates over the last few years, he further urged companies to adopt innovative CSR models which can be scaled up by the Government.

Throwing light on how industry can partner with the Government, Uma Mahadevan, Principal Secretary, WCD, Government of Karnataka, emphasised that early childhood development is one of the smartest CSR investments as it has a critical role to play in a child’s development. Highlighting the partnership of WCD, Government of Karnataka with CII Foundation towards creating model Anganwadi centres in the state, she urged industry members to pool in their CSR funds, especially to provide nutrition and rebuild infrastructure.

Raghupati Singhania, Chairman, CII National Committee on CSR 2018 -19 and Chairman & MD JK Tyres & Industries said that “Industry as the torchbearer shouldn’t be considering CSR as a peripherical approach instead lead, innovate, integrate and create an impact for laying the foundation towards sustainable yet inclusive ecosystem.”

Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Director, NITI Aayog said “Industry members can focus their efforts towards development of aspirational districts.” He further added that companies with common vision and development agenda can join hands for better impact.

Yasmin Ali Haque, Country Representative, UNICEF India, said that there is a need to focus on our demographic dividend and employ 350 million youth and bring back the dignity in jobs, especially informal sector.

The Summit is an annual flagship event and a key platform developed by CII to reflect and deliberate on furthering the CSR movement. The theme of the Summit this year is ‘Re-Imagining CSR: Innovate. Integrate. Impact’ to draw the conversation on effective, impactful and sustainable initiatives and how such approaches can be applied in real-life CSR situations to further the cause of inclusive development.

The Summit also saw participation of women leaders from grassroots. The women, who are a part of the CII Foundation Woman Exemplar network, have overcome grave challenges to create transformative work impacting communities and providing new paradigms for social development. The women shared their exemplary journeys and urged corporates to come forward and empower other women like them. 

Senior representatives from industry and institutions like S Narasimhan, Co Chairman, CII Southern Region Sub-committee on CSR and Affirmative Action, and MD, Sattva Logistics; G Sridhar, Addl. General Manager, NTPC; Shirin Kujur, Senior Manager- CSR, ReNew Power; Ashwini Saxena, Chief Operating Officer, JSW Foundation; Vishal Bector, Associate Professor, College of Agricultural Engineering & Technology and Director, Corporate & international relations, Punjab Agricultural University; Rashid Hasan, Advisor, SIAM deliberated upon innovative ideas to deal with the issues of environment degradation, climate change and pollution. Farmers from Boparai Khurd village in Ludhiana shared their experience of adopting sustainable farming practices, without burning the crop residues.

Thought leaders from civil society and State Governments including Nisha Singh, Advisor, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi; Leena Prakash, Founder, Mission Anganwadi & Expert in Early Childhood Development; Uma Mahadevan, Sumitra Mishra, Executive Director, Mobile Creches; Nisha Singh, Advisor, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi; Sunisha Ahuja, Early Childhood Education Specialist, UNICEF India, established that early childhood education is one smartest investment with great social returns.

The summit drew participation of over 300 representatives from industry, development agencies, government, entrepreneurs and innovators.

18 December 2018

New Delhi

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