History of Corporate social responsibility initiative dates back to 1969 with the inception of its manufacturing operations at Gujarat. It works on the pillars of Skill development, entrepreneurship and agriculture development. The Company’s SR Shroff Ajivika Trust is an initiative for creating sustainable livelihood. The Agriculture section of project is using demonstration and capacity building. At the UPL Farmers Training school many farmers have received training on scientific way of cultivation.
IndiaCSR News Network
NEW DELHI: : UPL Limited has been conferred with the prestigious India CSR Community Initiative award for its CSR Project in Agriculture development. On behalf of United Technologies Corporation Rishi Pathania, Head CSR, UPL received the award from the hands of Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs and Rusen Kumar, Founder & Managing Editor, IndiaCSR and CSR & COMPETITIVENESS during the Annual India CSR Awards Ceremony held at PHD House, New Delhi on April 6, 2015.The award winning case study featured in special edition CSR & COMPETITIVENESS, March 2015. CSR & COMPETITIVENESS is publication of IndiaCSR group.
The population growth in India is set to it world’s most populous country by 2025. On one side huge population will require huge livelihood opportunity, on another side parallel expansion of India’s high-growth industries will require a skilled workforce resulting in a fundamental imbalance.
In said scenario sustainable livelihood creation holds the key in country’s ability to activate the vast population for inclusive growth and to create sustainable livelihood. One of the major policy challenges India faces today is how to provide skilling and up skilling opportunities to low skilled and unorganized agricultural worker.
A predominant proportion of community is engaged in agricultural labour, even though agriculture sector has been experiencing a relative decline in GDP. It is important to ensure that those who remain in agriculture are made as efficient and competitive as possible. It is equally important to promote non-farm enterprises or employment to make India an agricultural powerhouse.
It’s important to upgrade and up skill low skilled workers engaged in agricultural and unorganized sector jobs because India will be the only country, which will have a deficit of high skilled and secondary educated workers, but a surplus of low skilled workers in the next two decades. In other words it will have too few high skilled workers in the next decade, but too many low skilled workers. Of course, all these low skilled workers will be from rural India, so it’s really important to create comprehensive systems to address this skill deficit of rural India.
Other dimension is that India is in a demographically favourable phase. This implies that the ratio of working age population to total population ratio is on the increase, leading to a need to provide productive livelihoods to the increasing number of young entering the workforce and also to those who are unemployed or under-employed
SR Shroff Ajivika
UPL Limited (formerly known as United Phosphorus Limited) has been donning the mantle of the socially responsible corporate even before the term had become a predominant norm. The history of UPL’s Corporate Social Responsibility stretches as far back as 1969 with the inception of its manufacturing operations at Vapi, Gujarat. UPL Limited believes in providing Sustainable Livelihoods which will be key strategy to alleviate poverty.
UPL’s SR Shroff Ajivika Trust is an initiative for creating sustainable livelihood. The Agriculture section of project is using demonstration and capacity building. At the UPL Farmers Training school a total of 403 farmers have received training on scientific way of cultivation. As a result System of Rice Intensification technology was adopted by 270 farmers in villages of Waghai cluster in district dang,Gujarat.
Providing Sustainable Livelihoods has greater significance in the current context, where 430 million people in our country are in the age group 15-34 and constitute 35% of the population (Census 2011). This age group is projected to increase to 464 million by 2021 and creating livelihood will be the most significant development challenge of the century.
S. R. Shroff Aajivika Trust (SRSAT) is an initiative of UPL Limited to create sustainable livelihood. SRSAT is well aware of present & future population challenges and believes in helping individuals live a life of dignity. To achieve this, SRSAT programmes are focusing on generating sustainable livelihood
Agriculture is one of the most important sectors in the Indian economy. Roughly half of India’s work force is still engaged in agriculture for its livelihood. Agriculture in India is both, a source of livelihood and a food security for a vast majority of people.
Given that India is still home to the largest number of poor and malnourished people in the world, a higher priority to improve productivity is needed in agriculture to achieve the goals of reducing poverty and malnutrition as well as of inclusive growth.
Achieving an 8-9 percent rate of growth in overall GDP may not deliver much in terms of poverty reduction unless agricultural growth accelerates. At the same time ‘growth with inclusiveness’ can be achieved only when agriculture growth accelerates and is also widely shared amongst people and regions of the country.
In given situation Agriculture development becomes important thematic focus for SRSAT. SRSAT adopted a framework for UPL KhedutPragati Programmeand it focuses on three crucial aspects:
Farmers in the tribal pockets of Dangs,Gujarat largely depend upon paddy for their consumption needs. Food security is a major issue because of small land holdings and low productivity. Efforts to push productivity frontiers need to start with the main staple crop, which is Paddy in Dangs.
In year 2013-2014 SRI technology was adopted by 270 farmers in 5 villages of Waghai cluster in Dang district. In year 2014-2015 till nowaround 700 farmers have adopted SRI Technology.Project is focusing on establishing SRI technology with 1100 farmers in 20 villages by 2015-16 to enhance paddy productivity and food security in Dang district of Gujarat.
Farming is best learned by hands-on practical experience. To ensure proper scientific learning UPL Limited has established at Farmers’ Training School (FTS) supported by 100 acre demonstration at Vikram Farm, Naholi (Vapi). FTS ensures that farmers learn new methodology through practical demonstrated of crops.
SRSATbelieves that Skills development holds the key to activate potential of India’s youth population for inclusive growth. SRSAT hasis having focused effort through UPL Niyojaniy Kendra which is working to provide unemployed young people with a comprehensive skills training to provide them knowledge and skills needed to secure employment in the growing demands of the diversifying local industries.
UPL Niyojaniy Kendra was started with a labor market scan, and now itsworking closely with local industry and has developed the market aligned training curriculum that forms the heart of the UPL Niyojaniy Kendra. The trainings have combine foundational, workforce readiness skills with industry-specific skills like Welder, Fitter, Electrician, Plumber etc . Upon completion of the training, qualified candidates are placed into entry-level jobs, thus creating a path to secure livelihood.
About IndiaCSR Awards
Instituted by IndiaCSR group ‘IndiaCSR Awards’ is an endeavour to promote reporting and communication in the CSR domain in our country. It is a milestone and an iconic event that acknowledges the unique and extraordinary contributions in the CSR domain. This is a premium honour that recognizes the most admired and outstanding CSR initiatives and ventures in India. The awards acknowledge the noble contributions in the CSR domain that are raising benchmarks by bringing radical and transformative change in the development arena through innovation and excellence.
The IndiaCSR Awards, in 21 categories, were opened to all organizations registered in India that engage in social responsibility. The Awards was opened for nomination by all companies, corporate funded foundations and partnerships operating in India.
The vision of the initiative is to identify and recognize the corporate best practices of ongoing Corporate Responsibility initiatives in various domains in the country and mission is to inspire, encourage, and facilitate corporate social responsibility awareness and practices among corporate India.
The aim of the Awards is to recognize the best CSR and innovative projects, and translating best practices into concrete action on the ground. The awards encourage the organizations on social projects or programmes to increase the recogniznition of CSR principles in their operations. This exciting and need based initiative focuses on successful partnerships between business and society, with particular emphasis on collaborative projects that tackle contemporary social issues through innovations and action oriented interventions.
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