Corporate Social Responsibility at ACC (Associated Cement Companies) is part of a long illustrious tradition. For ACC, CSR is the way a company balances its economic, social and environmental objectives while addressing stakeholder expectations and enhancing shareholder value.
ACC has a firm commitment to create larger societal value. The company launched its community development initiatives in the pre-independence era and since then it has continued to engage with development initiatives with host communities around its operations.
The communities living around ACC’s operations are the key stakeholders of the organisation. ACC actively assists these communities in identifying, prioritising and meeting their developmental aspirations. ACC has adopted a participatory community self reliance initiative across its sites in India, by creating forums, such as the Community Advisory Panel (CAP), which acts as a platform for the community, local district administration, NGOs and other opinion groups to come together and implement projects. The panels have proven to be valuable in presenting stakeholder views, reviewing the progress of community projects, obtaining timely feedback from stakeholders, and ensuring appropriate delivery of plan initiatives in a participatory method.
In 2013, the company revisited its CSR policy in view of the emerging regulatory framework. ACC’s Board constituted a CSR committee to particularly focus on guiding and monitoring of CSR initiatives of the company.
A wide range of social development initiatives were undertaken in partnership with local communities, government and non-government organisations. The initiatives reached out to people residing around ACC’s operation areas as well as to various disasters-hit areas around the country. focus of these initiatives was mainly on enhancing literacy and education for community, preventive health and sanitation, livelihood, employability and income generation, women empowerment, augmentation of community infrastructure, environment and other CSR initiatives, such as promotion of local arts, culture and sports.
ACC’s community development initiatives in 2013 focused on 132 villages, with a population of 0.6 million, located primarily around the company’s 14 plants. These initiatives were categorized in following three areas i) Education, ii) Sustainable Community Development (SCD) and iii) Infrastructure Development. The projects were planned, implemented and evaluated with stakeholder participation.
Total CSR expenditure for the FY 2013 was Rs. 22.75 crore i.e. 1.95 per cent of the PAT Average. Wherever possible, ACC availed the opportunity of working in partnership with the Government, NGOs and academic institutions in the area.
The company’s initiatives with respect to education benefited 18,380 children in the neighbourhood communities. ACC has established schools at all its locations, where children of employees and those from surrounding communities are provided good quality education. Management of these schools is outsourced to reputed educationists like the DAV or the best locally available institution, thereby ensuring that the schools maintain high standards of education. Since most plants are situated in remote hinterlands, the ACC schools are at once the most accessible and invariably among the best in the region.
The schools are supported by providing funds and infrastructure for initial construction, meeting a part of the teachers’ salaries and upgradation activities. Apart from an ongoing subsidy support to schools with which ACC has an agreement, support is also extended to other government schools in the vicinity. Meritorious students from weaker sections of the community are encouraged through the grant of scholarships.
Last year, ACC supported 666 meritorious students from the weaker sections of the community, through grant of scholarships for continuing their education. Support is also provided to poor learners by way of coaching classes. Technology Aided Education initiatives such as smart classes, interactive kiosks, implemented at several ACC locations for enhancing quality of learning, benefitted 12695 school children. Specific education support was provided to 851 drop out girl children.
The company continued to support seven Government-run Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) under a Public Private Partnership scheme (PPP) in a joint initiative with the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India. The company’s support focuses on enhancing the skills and employability of the students passing out of these institutes by upgrading the quality of education offered there.
ACC also runs two technical training institutes of its own, both of which enjoy considerable repute as centres providing technical training. The Sumant Moolgaokar Technical Institute (SMTI) at Kymore was first established in 1949 to train young men in specialised trades to become artisans, foremen and first line supervisors. It had its own independent curriculum and certification. Since 2008, the institute works with a revised objective of complementing the education received by engineering diploma trained candidates.
In 2013 SMTI trained 120 young men through an 18 month course as diesel mechanic cum fitter and electrical instrumentation. The other institute managed by the company is the ACC Cement Technology Institute (ACTI), which offers specialised technical training to young engineering graduates. ACTI trained 166 boys and 32 girls during the year with both class room and practical training in the operation and maintenance of cement plants.
The thrust in this respect comprises promoting health, women’s empowerment and creating livelihoods. These initiatives benefitted more than 109,000 people directly while twice as many people were indirect beneficiaries.
Health being one of the prime concerns of the community and critical for the general well being of company’s stakeholders, significant initiatives were undertaken in this domain. A total 1,09,450 people benefitted from the company’s various health and nutrition-related initiatives. ACC’s health initiatives mainly focus on preventive health of the community. Active awareness campaigns are undertaken to enhance communities understanding of the prevention of various disease and healthy ways of living.
Regular preventive health support to the community is reached out through health camps and mobile health vans. Most of these plant sites are situated in remote parts of the country, with little access to adequate healthcare and medical services. The company supports the local administration in promoting national health campaigns on important issues, such as malaria, prevention and immunisation and DOTS. During the year 2013, total 3273 general and special health camps were conducted to reach out preventive care to community members. In addition, regular support to the ACC hospitals was also extended to various government primary health care centers and community health care centers.
Special initiatives in healthcare and nutrition are taken for women and children in coordination with Health authorities. Communities are mobilised to participate in programmes for immunisation, anti-natal care, post natal care and birth spacing methods. IFA tablets were provided to prevent anemia among pregnant mothers and adolescent girls.
Other support activities included health and accidental insurance for SHG members and drivers in the company’s supply chain, subsidised ambulance facility to villagers for their emergency needs and subsidised hospitalisation of villagers.
Anganwadis are an integral part of the “Integrated Child Development Scheme” (ICDS) that plays a vital role in rural areas for overall development of children as well as support to pregnant and lactating mothers. ACC provided support to 132 Anganwadis that are serving the host communities. This has resulted in better supply and use of government’s medicine supplies through AWC, which has direct impact on infant mortality and maternal mortality.
The 339 kitchen gardens initiated through CSR have saved nutritional food expenditure of Rs 1200/- per family, enhancing their health condition.
A few years ago, when the spread of HIV/AIDS came to be recognised as one of India’s major public health issues, ACC rose to the occasion to become the first company in the corporate sector in India to join the national effort to fight this curse of HIV/AIDS in the country. In 2007, ACC established two Anti-Retroviral Treatment centres for patients of HIV/AIDS in two states, where the prevalence of the disease is the highest in the country.
The company established the ACC Ayushman Trust at Wadi in Karnataka and the ACC CMC Trust for Infectious Diseases (ACTFID) at Vellore, in Tamil Nadu in association with the Christian Medical College. ACC extended support to the ACTFID and AYUSHMAN trusts in 2013 in their on-going endeavour. During 2013, our HIV/AIDS related care reached about 3026 people.
A variety of initiatives is pursued to promote skill building and income generating schemes for local women groups. Women’s self-help groups or SHGs are imparted relevant training in their selected livelihoods and supported in the establishment of micro-enterprises. 737 SHGs were organised during the year. Members of these new as well as old SHGs were provided training for group cohesiveness, book-keeping, product development, marketing of the products, market linkages, bank linkages and exposure to best practices in SHG functioning. Some of these groups have initiated their own micro enterprises. Through bank linkages and interloaning, these members generated a total savings of 1.52 crore.
ACC AHEAD (Association for Health, Education and Development), the volunteering wing of the company’s ladies clubs at all plants, set up in 2008, continued to support social volunteering and community programmes with special emphasis on empowering women. The group has been successful in creating livelihood opportunities for numerous community women in the areas of tailoring, embroidery, knitting, making masala, pickles, fancy bags, gloves and in making, disposable cups and plates.
ACC believes in empowerment of people and assisting them in sustainability of their livelihood, as that will make the community self-reliant and increase their self-respect. During the year ACC’s various initiatives in this direction benefitted 17,288 people. Under its employability initiatives, the company supported the training of 3579 youth from poor families in the host community, of which 2501 persons were placed with various employers enabling a similar number of families to live above poverty line.
ACC plays a vital role in facilitating the creation and maintenance of basic infrastructure around all its operations such as roads, safe drinking water, deepening of ponds, repairing of schools, anganwadi and other community amenities. The company makes every possible effort to make these basic necessities available to our neighbourhood communities.
Wherever needed, NGO partners join in to ensure quality execution of the projects. Efforts are also taken to bring benefits of government schemes for the welfare of village communities. In 2013, company’s initiatives for infrastructure development benefitted 4,35,392 people. Each plant contributed in the creation of water harvesting structures and installation of hand pumps for drinking water. Excavation of ponds for irrigation and other water uses, directly and indirectly benefitted 2,72,418 people, whereas drinking water initiatives benefitted 72,294 people.
Special initiatives to promote sanitation among neighbouring communities were undertaken. Construction of 330 household toilets contributed to the strengthening of rural sanitation.
A total length of 4.75 kilometer road was constructed for meeting the needs of communities and company’s own operations around ACC Locations.
ACC’s Disaster Response Initiatives:
Whenever there is a major disaster or natural calamity in the country, the company supports central and state governments in galvanising and providing timely relief and assistance to survivors. In 2013, our disaster relief support initiatives in the major disasters in Uttarakhand and Maharashtra benefitted 8,703 people. In June 2013, when Uttarakhand faced devastation with severe flash floods, ACC’s Disaster Response Team reached out to the affected villages in Uttarkashi region with 24 employee volunteers from various units of the company’s north region. The team provided relief to survivors with ACC Mobile Health Units, doctors, nurses and pharmacists, along with safe drinking water, food and clothing. The Team worked in partnership with local NGOs and district administration.
ACC complemented the district administration’s effort by immediately arranging 5000 polypropylene bags to ensure that the relief material moves well in time and without getting wet. Relief material for displaced families including tents, solar lanterns, sleeping bags, blankets, daily utilities and kitchen utensils was also arranged. In addition, sanitation units and water treatment units were installed in five worst affected villages. Further, farmers in the five worst affected villages were trained and supplied with high yielding variety vegetable seeds and on-the-spot guidance. The District Administration appreciated the support provided by ACC’s team.
ACC encourages employees, their families and other close associates to join hands in implementing the company’s CSR activities. We provide ample opportunities to employees and others to volunteer their valuable services in projects located near our plants and also select projects in cities.
