SHILLONG: HDFC Bank’s flagship CSR initiative ‘Holistic Rural Development Programme’ has reached 750 villages.
A tiny hamlet ‘Umpathaw’ in Meghalaya became the 750th village under HRDP, improving access to potable water and providing the facility of a smart school to the children of this village.
Through this HRDP, this hamlet’s 106 households have got potable water at their doorsteps. This is the first time since independence that the village households in Umpathaw are getting potable water at their homes.
Paresh Sukthankar, Deputy Managing Director, HDFC Bank, said this initiative was a “microcosm of our attempts to change rural communities”.
“If India has to achieve inclusive growth, our rural areas have to grow in tandem with cities. Our interventions are aimed at creating sustainable improvements in rural areas,” Sukthankar said.
Nusrat Pathan, Head-CSR, HDFC Bank, said that plans are afoot to undertake ‘water audits’ to see if the desired outcome is achieved or not.
HRDP is a flagship CSR initiative of Parivartan, which is HDFC Bank’s umbrella brand for all its social development programmes. It seeks to improve village life by focussing on improvement in 5 key areas of: Education; Skills Training and Livelihood Enhancement; Natural Resources Management; Water and Sanitation and Financial Literacy and Inclusion.
Sukthankar said that HDFC Bank was “on course” to cover 1,000 villages under its HRDP by 2019.
Meanwhile, Sukthankar said that HDFC Bank was “confident” of achieving the targeted CSR spend of Rs. 365 crore this fiscal. This was higher than the Rs. 304 crore actually spent by the bank towards CSR in 2016-17. and Rs. 248 crore in 2015-16.
