Tata Steel organises Trucker’s Utsav to celebrate World Aids Day via @tatacompanies

TSRDS hosts truckers intervention project to serve the truckers community

Jamshedpur: Today, on the occasion of World Aids Day, Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) under its Truckers Intervention Project celebrated Trucker’s Utsav at Transport Nagar, Jamshedpur. TSRDS has been running a truckers intervention project named Kavach in collaboration with Transport Corporation of India Foundation (TCIF) since 2005 in Jamshedpur. More than 3,000 truck drivers and helpers participated in the programme.

The dignitaries present at the event send balloons soaring from the podium

The event started with multi health diagnostic health drive and ended with various cultural programmes. There were various participatory competitions and games, where the truckers got an opportunity to display their talent. Various NGOs have also put up their stalls at the venue. In October, 2010, Project Kavach collaborated with Jharkhand State Aids Control Society and became one of the first truckers intervention projects under JSACS in Jharkhand and one of the learning centres for NACO at the national level. TSRDS has been chosen for the first sentinel surveillance site in Jharkhand for the truckers in 2011.

The goal of the project is to minimise the spread of HIV infection among the long-distance truckers at Tatanagar TSL. The objective of the project is also to promote the adoption of safer sexual behaviour and practices by the truckers through dialogue-based peer-led interpersonal communication and behaviour change communication strategies, to promote the use of condoms among truckers through improving access, to reduce the incidence of various sexually transmitted infections among truckers through appropriate clinical intervention and creating an enabling environment by involving different stakeholders in their activities at intervention locations for the programme sustainability.

Truckers taking part in the multi health diagnostic drive

The intervention sites are Jamshedpur Transport Nagar, Dimna, LINFOX, Baliguma, Mathura Singh Parking, HN-33, Bharat Petroleum Corp, Baliguma, NH-33, Transport Park, Puja Maidan, Burmamines, The Tinplate Company of India, Tata Motors, HSM Gate and multi-diagnostic health camps at various hotspots in Jamshedpur where the monthly checkups for the truckers are provided.

Dignitaries such as Govind Ji, president, CBO; Tapan Drripa, PO, TSG; AC Srivastav, HOD, microbiology department, MGM; Baily Bodhanwala, MD, Tarapore & Co; Sanjiv Paul, vice president, corporate services, Tata Steel, and Sudhanshu Kumar, MD, Adityapur Toll Bridge Company were present at the event and highly appreciated the initiatives undertaken by TSRDS in promoting the health-related issues for the truckers. Mr Paul said that Tata Steel has never been ignorant towards the welfare of the citizens of each and every community of Jamshedpur. He further said that initiatives such as this reflect that the willingness to assist the commoners has always been, and will continue to be, the tradition for the company.