To impact a million lives. At once simple and powerful, that is the overarching corporate sustainability (CS) theme at Tata Steel. For over a century, the company has been making a difference to communities in and around its areas of operations in the Indian states of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

“Tata Steel’s vision is to set global benchmarks in value creation and corporate citizenship and this journey can never be complete unless our activities encompass and impact the community,” says Biren Bhuta, who heads CS at the steel major.

Continuous interaction with communities and detailed mapping of stakeholder expectations have helped the company zero in on its focus areas for CS: sustainable livelihoods, education, health and the environment. Earlier, the company’s activities were dispersed widely, and the impact of its interventions was less visible. There were no long-term plans or any well-defined manner by way of which support would be withdrawn. “The present shift is to make a much deeper impact on communities,” says Mr Bhuta.

It takes the concerted effort of several departments and societies at Tata Steel to make the kind of impact that the company aims for, including medical services, urban services, the sports department, the Tata Steel Rural Development Society, the Tribal Cultural Society and the Tata Steel Family Initiatives Foundation.

Quality of life
Tata Steel’s interventions in the area of health have brought much-needed preventive and curative facilities to communities that would otherwise have no access to medical help. “More than 200,000 people benefit annually from the company’s healthcare services, ranging from primary care to specialised services like eye-care, family planning, mother and child health, TB control, HIV / Aids, leprosy and corrective operations for cleft lip and palate,” says PC Mahapatra, head of the Tata Steel Family Initiatives Foundation.

Land and water management is a critical part of Tata Steel’s activities aimed at fostering sustainability, where programmes for rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharging and improving agricultural yields have helped reduce distress migration. “Our efforts have helped bring more than 10,000 acres of land under vegetable cultivation that was not being cultivated after the kharif season,” says Debdoot Mohanty, secretary of the Tata Steel Rural Development Society. “In Jharkhand, where around 9 per cent of the total land is wasteland, around 13,000 acres of land have already been covered under horticulture crops, mainly cashew and mango, benefiting 4,600 farmers from 160 villages.”

Employability enabler
Thanks to the company’s employability interventions, around 2,000 youth have been trained over the past three years in masonry, driving, fitting, plumbing, site safety supervision, repairs of autos, mobile phones, refrigerators and other electrical goods, and also in high-end skills required for the BPO, IT and healthcare industries. The company encourages rural enterprise development by providing financial and other assistance to set up small business units in areas such as pisciculture, vermicomposting, rice-processing, animal husbandry, etc, as well as supporting the formation of self-help groups (SHGs) among women from poor families.

Around 700 women’s SHGs are operating successfully today, with members’ savings amounting to about Rs35 million.

Making education work
The company’s interventions in early childhood education have showed a tremendous return with an average of 1,000 students undergoing a pre-school education programme every year. Older students get merit scholarships. “Every year, we give scholarships to more than 650 students from the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities, for secondary and higher education, as well as professional courses. For 2011-12, Rs7.5 million has been earmarked for scholarships,” says Urmila Ekka, the joint secretary of the Tribal Cultural Society.

For the girl child, Tata Steel conducts Camp School, a nine-month intensive residential learning course offered to students aged 9-14 years to qualify them for admission to Class VI. Run in partnership with the Jharkhand Education Society under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, India’s flagship programme for countrywide elementary education.

The camp school enables around 200 girls, who have dropped out of the formal education system, to pursue courses that can help them get back into the educational mainstream. Then there are adult literacy classes for women where, every year, around 3,000 women become functionally literate.

Affirmative action is yet another focus area where Tata Steel is working to build self-belief and self-esteem among the indigenous tribal communities. The Tribal Cultural Society promotes tribal art and culture, music and dance and works towards preservation of tribal languages like Santhali and Ho.

Tata Steel has a long and well-established reputation for pioneering corporate sustainability activities, an area that today is poised for a big leap forward. Says Mr Bhuta, “The paradigms have changed; we need to shift orbits as well. We need to take that leap of faith to ensure sustainability, in the true sense, for all.”

This article was a part of a special report on corporate sustainability featured in the December 2011 issue of the Tata Review. Follow the links below to go to the other articles that were a part of this report:
	Indian Hotels: Training for tomorrow
	Tata Chemicals: Taking the long-term view
	Tata Motors: Strong bonds