‘CSR is everyone’s job at the company’

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To answer the question how important social responsibility is for Hindustan Latex Ltd (HLL), I would like to suggest it to be the soul of our business. If we talk about condoms, it makes the society move towards a safer tomorrow, and cuts short health disasters like HIV/AIDS. But this is just one example.

Social responsibility indeed is a buzzword for every company today. Those who really follow it — the Tatas and the Gates of the world — indeed are doing a great job. And those who are not there at least want to know it and make a humble beginning. All the efforts put together surely aim to make a great contribution to the India’s social good.

HLL is also trying to do its bit towards society. Being a manufacturer and marketer of contraceptives, healthcare and pharma products, and chasing a target of being a Rs 1,000 crore company by 2010, we have never parted with our responsibility towards the society. We have undertaken various programmes based on the health, family welfare, culture, educational and infrastructure development. Our not-for-profit organisation, Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust (HLFPPT), has been supporting the implementation of population stabilisation and HIV/AIDS prevention and care programme in partnership with international development agencies, state governments and ministry of health and family welfare. HLFPPT has been pioneering implementation of social marketing programmes for enhancing the access and demand for condoms, oral contraceptive pills and other health products.

Hindustan Latex has also has been extending financial assistance to various educational, cultural, social and sports organisations for various activities all over the state. The company has been providing assistance to poor students in government schools for obtaining uniforms, notebooks etc. HLL has also been providing assistance to the noon meal scheme for students of a government school at Peroorkada, Kerala. The company has also provided computers, furniture and uniforms for various schools in the city.

The company initiated a massive cleanliness drive in various parts of the city along with the Corporation of Trivandrum and Habitat to face the challenge posed by the spread of vector-borne diseases in the city and neighbourhood. HLL is also assisting in the modernisation of the Peroorkada General Hospital that serves a vast segment of the city’s population. As part of its CSR initiative, HLL has renovated the Kowdiar Park — a major park in the heart of the city — at Thiruvananthapuram.

One of our several interesting initiatives has been towards the mental health centre near our factory at Peroorkada. The company has provided a bread-baking unit for the centre at a cost of around Rs.1.35 lakh. We also support a voluntary association, Vatsalya — set up by the company employees — to undertake social activities in the vicinity of the Peroorkada plant. In fact, our employees have been the pillar of our social image. They participate regularly in blood donation camps and most of them have given their consent for donating their eyes after death and the forms were handed over to the National Organization for the Blind.

—(The author is CMD, Hindustan Latex Ltd)