India CSR News Network
BHUBANESWAR: Tata Steel’s operations around the world are committed to developing and sustaining the societies in the periphery of their operational areas. In line with this spirit, the Company’s OMQ (Ore, Mines & Quarries) Division is working continuously with the community to enhance skill-set of youth, both boys and girls.
Through active collaboration with Shahi Exports Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore and central government initiated Din Dayal Upadhaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana (DDU-GKY) scheme, Tata Steel has initiated skill development programme for youths in Joda.
The endeavour is to uplift and empower them by upscaling the candidates and ensuring they are reasonably employed in their own home turf. This is a tribal-dominated region and the project has brought a ray of hope in the community.
Bangalore-based Shahi Exports Pvt. Ltd., is a reputed garment production company in India. Together with Tata Steel, the company is facilitating girls of Joda block to opt for one of the brightest sustainable employment opportunities of apparel designing and making.
To leverage this opportunity, Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS), the rural CSR wing of Tata Steel held counselling sessions in the local community involving the girls and their parents. Once the interest rose, the girls were provided further details of this vocation, especially the employment opportunity it offered.
A total of 10 girls from Joda and Bhuyan Roida gram panchayat were selected in the first batch to undergo the training. On May 31, 2016, they were sent to Bhubaneswar for training. After two months of training as industrial sewing machine operator, all the girls got employment opportunity at Shahi Exports Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore, where they were trained for an additional month before continuing as expert sewing operators. Now they are earning in their own capacities and have, in turn, begun to support their families.
Sukurmani Munda, the mother of Suru Munda from village Camphutting, a beneficiary of this project, while narrating her daughter’s story got emotional and never forgot to thank Tata Steel for supporting her girl child throughout her life. She revealed that Tata Steel has supported the education of her child through Jyoti Fellowship scholarship and then ensured a livelihood opportunity through this project.
Durga Madhab Subudhi, Assistant Manager, Odisha Skill Development Programme of Shahi Export opined that the programme has potential to help youths of Odisha if proper awareness was created. The government was also putting in effort to support this cause. “Under this programme, a three-month free accommodation and basic computer literacy was also being provided by the Company, post which, the candidates were being provided placement opportunities,” he said.
Till now, a total of 19 girls from Joda have been facilitated under this programme in two batches. The first batch has already got 100 per cent placement, while the second batch is undergoing the training programme at Bhubaneswar. Looking at the success rate of placement and engagement, the programme will be reached out to all interested candidates in the locality.
The speciality of this programme is that it is building a ray of hope and confidence among the local youths and their guardians. The parents are not hesitating any more to send their daughters for this programme, as they have now understood the potential employment avenues that it would bring to them.
