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April 2008 Edition

 

 

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Civil Society News
New Delhi

CORPORATE social responsibility or CSR has come to be regarded mostly as a farce. Indian companies put a little money into CSR to make themselves look good. It is important for them to be seen as caring. For the record, CEOs pay the usual lip service to development and working for the community. CSR with a nudge and wink has now become commonplace. But what about thosecompanies that want to go beyond corporate charade and really make a difference? How do they make CSR work?

The TVS Motor Company makes a significant contribution around its factories in south India through the Srinivasan Services Trust (SST). It is watched over rather passionately by Venu Srinivasan, the TVS chairman. (See Civil Society, June 2006.) Recently, SST, whose head is Ashoke Joshi, a public spirited former IAS officer, got its work independently assessed for the second time in eight years. This time it called in a team from the Gandhigram Trust, which spent 20 days examining the sustainability of SST’s initiatives at three locations.

The team was given full freedom and Joshi and SST people stayed away from the locations while the assessment was in progress.When the team met SST staff, Joshi made it a point not to be present. The Gandhigram findings were that SST had made a significant impact on the lives of people in whose midst it had been working. Its projects were sustainable and the next stage for SST was to hand over to communities that it had empowered. One of the reports is on Navatirupati in Tamil Nadu. Here there are 20,482 people or 4,180 households in 22 villages. The landholdings are small and unproductive. In the absence of income from the land, the villagers had taken to crime. The distilling of illicit arrack was widespread. The youth were involved in extortion.

Such was the deterioration between 1995 and 2000 that the villages were largely shunned and people even stopped visiting the temple located there. SST’s work with the villagers built a culture of self- help. Villagers began discovering alternative and more respectable ways of earning money. There has been a significant jump in their credit- worthiness. Groups of women make incense sticks and payasam, a traditional snack using jaggery which they sell to brick kiln workers. Credit, water management and appropriate technology have been provided and made small landholdings more productive. Seeds have been standardised and the bulbs of banana plants are treated prior to planting.

Community infrastructure has been revived. School buildings and creches have been renovated and sanitation and water supply have been provided. The temple has been refurbished as well and given its place in the community. In the next few years, a Village Development Committee and a VillageDevelopment Fund will manage assets and provide microfinance. Civil Society spoke to Ashoke Joshi about SST’s achievements and its plans for the future.

What prompted you to undertake a survey of the work of SST?

We follow total quality management in our factories. It is in the same spirit that we chose to get an independent assessment done of our work with communities. We like to assess whether we are on the right track or losing our way because we are so close to the action. Independent verification always helps to know that.

But it isn’t common. Usually, money spent on social responsibility activities is written off. So why this effort?

The moving force behind the idea has been Venu Srinivasan, TVS Motor Co’s chairman. We would like to know how sustainable we are.

How long has SST been working with communities?

Around eight years.

And this is the second assessment.

Yes. The first assessment was done three and a half years ago. We want to do it every three and a half years because that is the time we feel we need to make an impact.

What have the two assessments taught you?

The first assessment was to know if the community was feeling the change. And we found that they were. In some areas there was impact of a high order and in others it was nominal. But we felt sustainability was not being achieved. There were programmes that people would welcome and consider it our duty to continue with. They didn’t feel the need to get involved. We clearly had to work on that to get people involved and ensure that programmes could continue without us.

People became involved when it was an income generating activity. But health, education and cleanliness remained grey areas. They welcomed our initiatives but felt that we should continue to be responsible for them.

So what did you do to make them more sustainable?

We created more awareness. We consulted the community more and involved people in planning. We gave recognition to those who participated and did well.

Give us an example.

School infrastructure is an example. At first we would do the work and they would say well done. Then we said we would give the people the material and they would have to get the work done. Then we asked them to put in a financial contribution. It was small: Rs 10 to 15 per child. Now we don’t spend money on maintenance. The community maintains the school infrastructure.

So, this recent study was on sustainability.

When the study team came we never accompanied them. We wanted to see for themselves. What the study found was that family incomes had gone up and crime was down thanks to the interventions made by us. Associations of farmers and SHGs of women were stronger.

 

How did you choose the evaluator?

Gandhigram is respected, independent and relatively inexpensive. It has people who are experienced in community activities. They are not just theorists, but practitioners. It took them 15 days to cover three locations and the entire assessment was done for under Rs 1 lakh

How many villages does SST work in?

We work in 206 villages and expect to expand to 334. Our goal is sustainability so that the community can manage without us. In the next financial year we hope to be able to withdraw from 25 to 30 villages.

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