Jindal Stainless serving the society during lockdown and fighting Covid-19

Jindal Stainless Limited through its Foundation initiated action to combat ‘Enemy COVID-19’ even before the formal letter was issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs with regard to the ‘Clarification on investing CSR funds for COVID-19’. We started work supporting migrant and daily wage workers in Delhi / NCR and the communication of 23^rd March 2020 helped us to expand the scope of our response in mitigating some of the problems of the marginalized sections of society during the current ‘lockdown’ phase.

The initial planning started and stages planned on the phases perceived and all this was based on assessed needs to combat the problem. 

Areas of interventions

As perceived, there are essentially five ways of providing support during the initial phase of combating COVID-19. These are as follows:

• Awareness: Awareness among the community members regarding the safe practices for avoiding infection
• Medical Institutions: Provision of Equipment and Resources to Medical Institutions to develop a more resilient healthcare system
• Health workers: Supporting the Frontline workers and community members with materials and supplies
• Vulnerable Sections of Society: Support Vulnerable sections who have no income source to avoid financial stress and improve access to food and essential resources
• Research Organizations; Expedite Research on Identifying testing techniques, Vaccines and Cure to expedite our recovery through medical advancements

Phases

• Preparatory Phase – Awareness
• Anticipated Migration Phase – Food (Dry rations and prepared food support
• Long term Phase:
• Support Medical Institutions
• Support Communities by linking above support with livelihood
• Assistive digital technology in the area of telemedicine and consultation

JSL CSR response

Planning

The planning started early March and we got our tailoring centers at Jajpur, Odisha to make surgical masks. The initial material was procured from Jamshedpur and samples duly approved for manufacture. The material for making masks was ordered from Surat and advance given but due to clamp down on movement the delivery has been delayed and material has yet to reach Jajpur. Meanwhile other vendors were contacted for manufacturing masks in large quantities.

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Awareness

We also started the awareness campaign at Hisar, with posters being put up and an awareness program developed by our partners, which was being planned at the OP Jindal Park.

Support to communities

However, the need of immediacy of action having escalated after the announcement of ‘Janta Curfew’ and considering our capacity and limitation of funds, we decided to respond immediately and address the vulnerable sections of society in Delhi / NCR, by providing rations and food to the migrant, daily wage workers, who had little or no support system left after the announcement of the ‘Lockdown’. We immediately put our machinery into motion and carried out a random survey through our partners and arrived at a plan to provide packets of dry rations to a migrant basti. This basti houses approx 250 households with an average of four members per family.

Providing food

In addition, we have started providing food to affected communities through community kitchens run both by the Delhi Government and NGOs. The initiative with the Delhi Government is planned on a PPP model with JSL Foundation and Delhi Urban Shelters Authority, the designated establishment by the Delhi Government to manage all State run kitchens across Delhi.

Health equipment

We also have been in consultation with manufacturers of PPE for the health workers, which again is critical during the current phase of COVID-19, when a large number of patients will need medical care. There are various organizations, which have shared their facilitation and all will depend of the budget that we have for the purpose.

Production and distribution of 3 ply masks

To address the urgent needs of the front line health workers, food distribution workers and others, Jindal Stainless Limited through its Foundation has embarked upon supporting the initiative by providing them 3 ply Covid masks. Jindal Stainless Foundation has gone into fast track mode and procured a large quantity of masks from local manufacturers and has started distributing through its network of agencies on the ground.

The Foundation has provided the masks to hospitals and communities as per the GoI guidelines in equal measure and across locations. In Delhi NCR we have supported St. Stephen’s hospital near Tis Hazari, where a large number of poor communities come for treatment and supplied them masks. We have also sent packages of masks to Hisar and Jajpur for further distribution to hospital and other community workers.

Self Help Group promoted by Jindal Stainless Foundation in Jajpur have also been mobilized for making masks in the comfort of their homes, which has been a great opportunity for SHG members to learn and earn in making of Covid masks. By this method, it is not just provision of masks in collaboration with a regular manufacturer that we have created the volume required for distribution but also increased livelihood generation opportunity amongst the comity of SHG members

Address farmer issues  

Besides the above we have also initiated steps to mitigate problems of farmers during this phase of ‘Lockdown’, we have been working with different stakeholders. The problems are rather complex and we have been trying to find simple solutions. Some of the problems are the looming threat of crop ready to be harvested with limited or no labor available, logistic support, marketing support, lack of pesticides, fungicides, seeds for planting during the present kharif crop plantation season, with limited time period available for such planting, etc.

We have been engaged with both the Government of Odisha and Haryana, besides others to support the farmers. In the process our partner, Gram Unnati Foundation has been given the license to procure directly from farmers and mitigate their distress sale problems. Big institutions and corporations have assured support in this field and Corporations like Bayers assuring all support in this regard has boosted the confidence of farmers.

Our teams in Nuh, Pataudi and other areas are collating essential data of farmers affected and are in the process of mitigating the challenge during this period. This is an extremely important exercise to ensure the farmers tide over the present crisis and address the issue of livelihood of the marginalized sections of society. Besides vegetable procurement from this area has since commenced and fresh is being supplied to Delhi kitchens feeding the migrant people in Delhi / NCR.

Facilitating farmers in marketing and improving their supply chains

Agricultural supply chains across India have broken down. Most APMC Mandis are either shut or severely understaffed and mismanaged that they have ceased to work. Unfortunately, most agro-processors or retailers including new online players do not have backward integrated supply chains that enable them to purchase agriculture produce from the source. Farmers are finding themselves in a position where there are no buyers for their crops, while retail consumers are suffering either from unavailability of products or escalation of prices. A large number of agro-processors have also been forced to cease operations or operate at lower capacity due to raw material supply constraints.

Gram Unnati Foundation / Four Leaf Cover, have been working directly with farmers for seven years to source agricultural produce at terms more favorable than those offered by the traditional Mandi-based system. Together we have built a technology enabled, asset light model that enables us to procure directly from farmers and sell to institutional buyers without middlemen. This enables us to unlock value within the supply chain for farmers’ benefit. Today, through GUF, over 100,000 farmers across six states have been reached and trusted relationships have been built with them.

Early lockdown stage itself we have teamed up with the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board to supply 2,000 kgs of fresh vegetables daily to community kitchens serving food to those most deeply affected by the lockdown. A lot of this produce would have otherwise gone waste in the field. For farmers urgently requiring agricultural inputs, we have organized a massive outreach campaign with Bayer Crop Sciences to understand their needs. Working with the local district administrations, we are organizing the required stocks and delivering inputs at farmers’ door steps in safe and sanitized conditions.

The Government of Rajasthan has already given us special permissions to buy from farmers outside the crowded mandi premises. Under the guidance of the local administration we are developing the necessary protocols and setting up safe and sanitized procurement systems. This will enable farmers to access fair markets for the sale of their Rabi harvest. Multiple buyers have already expressed their interest in engaging.

Web application

We are developing a web application to collate the demand for fresh vegetables in select colonies of Delhi NCR, Bhubaneswar & Cuttack, and match it to the availability in our farmer network near these cities. This will enable these colonies to get access to fresh vegetables at affordable rates while ensuring that farmers have a ready market for their produce. We hope to launch this application by next weekend. This is just a stop-gap solution to ensure that consumers and producers stay connected while traditional supply chains are disrupted. The post-lockdown future of this application is uncertain.

Employee volunteering and support

Employee volunteering program and donation support has since been put into motion with employees voluntarily donating their time and cause related financial support and have started volunteering to support with their digital and management skills.

Donations

In addition to the above, company has also contributed over Rs. 7 crores in the PM CARES fund, CM Relief funds and State National Disaster Management Authorities as also to other development organizations engaged in providing food and shelter to communities in distress. Such support only strengthens our resolve of providing succor to the people at large. People the first ‘P’ of the triple bottom line in the CSR approach toward integrated development of the Nation state.

World Health Partners (Technology driven healthcare e-solutions)

Exploring the possibility of further collaboration with WHP, the organization with solutions available are working in the field of rapidly deploying digital tools to rush medical help to the poor and to identify suspect COVID-19 cases. The deliberations are presently going on with WORLD HEALTH PARTNERS (WHP), as it seeks to establish a network of volunteer doctors and general assistants to urgently deliver medical care to poor communities especially in rural areas.

WHP already has highly stabilized digital systems by which a patient using a normal cell phone can consult with a city doctor. (Smart phones will allow video consultations.)  In the COVID-19 context, this solution will also be re-purposed to locate a suspect COVID-19 patient and work with the government to provide follow-up care. The solution is browser based so any volunteer with 2MB connectivity will be able to join the backend functions. The volunteers can be at home and will not incur any costs or call charges.

The project has much promise as it will help in addressing challenges of community during the next stage of the challenge, when community spread is feared. It is at that time that medical care will become further stressed and telemedicine as per Government protocols will become a norm. Although apps like Arogya have been developed, yet without adequate dedicated lines available for a diagnostic and behavior to be addressed the challenges will remain significant and prophetic patient care will become more relevant.

The cost for a dedicated 500 line platform exclusively for such e – health platform to be created will be approx Rs. 500 per line p.m. (Approx 250, 000).

Conclusion

Jindal Stainless has invested in communities impacted by COVID-19 in a deliberate phased manner understanding the stages of intervention based on a quick need assessment. The exercise as mentioned started early March 2020 and with the support of the Chairperson of Jindal Stainless Foundation, implementation of programs speeded up. The effort will be to continue supporting the affected and ensuring that all investment made reaches the target population as per existing guidelines of the present dispensation. For we believe it is not in just numbers and amount invested that counts but in actual reach and contributing in the overall effort in combating the present challenge.

(Copyright@indiacsr)