India CSR News Network
CHENNAI: Equitas Small Finance Bank, the first private sector Bank in Tamil Nadu post-Independence today organized Diwali celebration for 50 children from the families of rehabilitated pavement dwellers. Through the CSR initiative, gift vouchers, lunch box and sweets were distributed amongst the students. Parents of the kids were given groceries from the Equitas Dhanya Kosha grocery stores that Equitas runs as a not for profit food security initiative.
As part of Equitas Birds Nest, an initiative for rehabilitating pavement dwellers, every year Equitas celebrates Diwali in one slum where pavement dwellers are accommodated. This is for the first time that Equitas SFB has celebrated Diwali at its office with the kids and their parents.
P N Vasudevan, MD & CEO, Equitas Small Finance Bank engaged the kids and the parent and motivated them to become part of nation building process during the event. S P Mathur (Former DGP), Trustee Equitas Development Initiative Trust (EDIT) was the chief guest. N Rangachary, Chairman, Equitas Holdings Ltd, Arun Ramanathan, Chairman, Equitas Small Finance Bank, P V Rajaraman, Director, Equitas Small Finance Bank, Mr. P T Kuppuswamy, Director, Equitas Small Finance Bank and Y C Nanda, Director, Equitas Holdings Ltd., distributed gifts to the children Venkataramani, Muthu Palaniappan Rtn. Ganesan were the special invitees.
Equitas Pavement dwellers rehabilitation program is a part of Equitas Development Initiative Trust (EDIT) that addresses a larger spectrum of requirements of low income Self-help group (SHG) members including schools for SHG members’ children and skill development training classes to its SHG members. Equitas Group is committed to contribute 5% of its annual profits to carry out these activities.
Since its launch Equitas Bird’s Nest has rehabilitated 902 families residing in the pavements of Chennai. The program was presented to these families and was launched with their support. As a first step of this program, financial support for housing was provided to these families. The financial support met the expenses of rental advance and the first six months’ rentals.
The mission statement of Equitas is to improve quality of life by increasing total household asset value of those who are not effectively serviced by the formal financial sector by providing transparent and trustworthy access to financial and other relevant products and services by deploying cutting edge technology and forming partnerships and alliances.
Equitas Small finance bank previously known as Equitas Finance Ltd started its operations on September 5, 2016. It offers a range of banking and financial products that address the requirements of all customer segments. As of June 30, 2016, the consolidated AUM is about 6,500 Crs out of which half is microfinance, 25% used commercial vehicle finance and rest MSE. Equitas Small Finance Bank will have 412 banking branches across 11 states by the end of the financial year 2016-17.
