MUMBAI: Sita Ram Gupta, renowned social worker and Executive Director of Lupin Human Welfare & Research Foundation, honoured with ‘India CSR Lifetime Achievement Award for 2019’, one of the prestigious CSR Award in India for his contribution to the social development at Giving Back India CSR Leadership Summit & Award held on 1st April at New Delhi.
Rusen Kumar, Founder and Managing Editor of India CSR Group; Actor Rahul Roy and Martin Neureiter President & CEO, CSR Company International conferred the award in the presence of 300 CSR leaders.
In 1989, Sita Ram Gupta, who was basically electrical engineer left his plump government job to join the Lupin Foundation, responding to a call from Dr. Deshbandhu Gupta, founder chairman of Lupin Ltd to become part of initiative to revolutionize rural development sector. Since then, for last three decades he explored different themes of rural development, provided vision to the organisation and realised it through his able leadership.
Consequently, more than hundred thousands of people were lifted out of poverty in the Lupin project area. People friendly technologies developed in collaboration with academic institutes such as IITs were disseminated to remote villages leading to change in the quality of life. Millions of farmers, women and youth were empowered through targeted innovative and visionary programmes.
His dream, which he owes to his mentor Dr. Deshbandhu Gupta is to make poverty history in India. He has now adopted ‘empowerment line’ developed by McKinsey as a benchmark to achieve in Lupin programme areas. He believes in immense power of corporates to transform the fate of India.
Under his far-sighted leadership, Lupin has created number of replicable development prototypes such as rural livelihood and district development models that can prove game changer in the sector. Through his innovative, dynamic thought leadership, he made sure that Lupin remains prime mover in the CSR sector. No wonder, Lupin Foundation is recognised as one of the leading CSR organisation in India and has received all the highest awards in the country in its long journey of over three decades.
Rusen Kumar said, “The India CSR Lifetime Achievement Award is an acknowledgement of Sita Ram Gupta’s contributions to the areas of corporate responsibility, social and sustainable development, and agriculture, enterprise development. We wish him happy and healthy life ahead to carry on with his mission to make positive contribution to the larger good.”
Rusen Kumar further added, “We wish him a happy and a healthy life ahead to carry on with his mission to make a positive contribution to the worlds of Corporate Governance and CSR.”
Sita Ram Gupta also participated in a panel discussion. He expressed concern over the different challenges before social sector and suggested pathways for betterment of the rural development. He explained how an individual has immense role in the society and making it a better place for others.
The ‘India CSR Awards’ is one of the prestigious recognition honouring the outstanding and innovative CSR, Sustainability and Social Enterprise Projects and leadership in CSR. This year’s theme for the India CSR Awards is ‘Celebrating Innovation and Leadership in CSR’. India CSR Awards have been instituted to recognize the innovative CSR Practices in India and this is the third edition of India CSR Awards.
India CSR Lifetime Achievement Awards to date:
Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, IICA (2016),
Prof B S Sahay (2017), Ashis Mondal, Action for Social Advancement (ASA) ((2017);
Ashok Sawhney, CEO -Swiss Military Worldwide Products and Brand (2018),
Prof Colin Coulson-Thomas (2018)
Shri. Sitaram Gupta, Executive Director, Lupin Human Welfare & Research Foundation (2019)
