CHENNAI: Hygiene, sanitation and women empowerment will continue to be the focus areas of Srinivasan Services Trust (SST), the CSR (corporate social responsibility) arm of TVS Motor.

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Asserting this, Venu Srinivasan, Chairman of TVS Motor, lauded Prime Minister’s initiatives of ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ and women empowerment.

Over the last 20 years, SST, he said, had been focussing on these aspects in about 2,500 villages.

“The vision of ‘Swachh Bharat – Clean India – by 2nd October 2019’ is laudable, and this initiative is India’s biggest-ever cleanliness drive. The Prime Minister has also been emphasising on the urgent need for change in societal values with regard to women empowerment and protection,” Mr. Srinivasan said in a statement.

Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP), an award-based incentive scheme for fully sanitised and open defecation-free gram panchayats, blocks, districts and states, was launched by the Indian government. In this context, he said SST consciously worked on reducing open defecation.

Its initiatives were aimed at improving personal hygiene and sanitation of the villages, and 49 panchayats (331 SST villages) had won the NGP.

SST’s efforts had resulted in construction of 91,000 individual toilets, 100 community toilets and 700 school toilets. These were provided to the villages by the government under its welfare schemes, he added.