Education tops CSR initiatives

PUNE: Call it low-hanging fruit (because it is easiest to do), selfish or altruistic, but education is at the top of most companies’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. It is also the most visible act for companies, with immediate results to be seen in the form of increased employability of people in the surrounding area.

Anant Talaulicar, chairman and managing director of Cummins India, admitted to “selfish reasons” for Cummins’ support for education: they hope to one day recruit at least a few of the engineers who emerge from the all-women Cummins College of Engineering which the over Rs 1,800-crore engine maker supports.

“The Cummins Engineering College, run under the auspices of the Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Samstha, will start its first batch of 60 students in the mechanical engineering stream from this educational year. We are supporting this for our selfish reasons: we hope to recruit some of the mechanical engineers who graduate from here,” Mr Talaulicar told share holders at the company’s 46th annual general meeting.

BN Kalyani, chairman and managing director, Bharat Forge, talked of creating a “sustainable talent pipeline,” given that attrition is high and a pipeline from the semi-rural to rural areas will give them a pipeline of people.

“We have tied up with eight polytechnic and rural engineering colleges in Maharashtra, creating a pipeline. We are probably the first company in the country to have tied up with a state government to take over the management and operations of an ITI (Industrial Training Institute). We will run and manage the Maharashtra government’s ITI at Khed for five years,” Mr Kalyani told his share holders. Khed is where the Bharat Forge- proposed special economic zone (SEZ) is to come up.

Stressing on the altruistic, Thermax Ltd’s Social Initiative Foundation has taken over one English medium school of the Pune Municipal Corporation for 30 years.

Meher Pudumjee, chairperson, Thermax, stated, “The Thermax Social Initiative Foundation has decided to primarily concentrate its efforts and resources on edcuation for the under privileged. The Foundation has been able to partner with the Pune Municipal Corporation to take over and run an English medium school for gifted children, for the next 30 years.” Kirloskar Brothers, on the other hand, has recently tied up with the College of Engineering Pune (COEP), to introduce a six-month certificate course in turbo machinery, indicating that this was very much in their own line of business.