The Sir Ratan Tata Trust signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Tata Steel on April 17, 2007, at Bombay House for providing technical support to the Tata Steel Centenary Project (TSCP). The MoU was signed by HD Malesra, secretary and chief accountant, Sir Ratan Tata Trust, and AN Singh, deputy managing director (corporate services), Tata Steel. The memorandum will remain valid for a period of five years, beginning April 1, 2007.

Conceived as a part of Tata Steel's centenary celebrations, TSCP is a Rs100 crore mega-initiative that focuses on enhancing the livelihoods of 40,000 poor tribal households, in one block each in the tribal districts of Keonjhar (Orissa), Saraikela (Jharkhand) and Bastar (Chhattisgarh), covering a total of 400 villages through interventions based on natural resources.

As per the MoU, Tata Steel will depute Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS), Jamshedpur, as its nodal agency for implementing TSCP, and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust will appoint the Central India Initiative (CInI) cell to provide technical support and overall guidance to the TSCP. The CInI cell, set up by Sir Ratan Tata Trust, focuses on dealing with issues relating to the problems of livelihoods of tribal communities in central India in a comprehensive manner.