In an effort to promote the role of corporate social responsibility(CSR) among the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) has tied up with JK group of companies.
The collaboration will be carried forward by JK Business School that is coming up on 10 acres of land on Sohna Road, Gurgaon. It is among the frontrunners to be roped in by CII to help it introduce CSR activities in mid-size companies. Students go on compulsory projects to various companies for CSR activities and prepare reports suggesting ways and means to implement those activities in the companies.
Reena Ramachandran, director general, JK Business School told FE, “CII has identified our school to promote the idea of CSR amongst the SME segment. Since the mindsets are changing and CSR deals with all the stakeholders, it’s important to implement CSR activities. This partnership with JK Business School will give the second year students the opportunity to work with the local and small businesses to identify the strategic CSR opportunities. The main motive of this tie-up is to promote the CSR activities of the companies who had failed in their prior attempts. CII will identify those companies where the CSR activities have not succeeded earlier and give them another chance to engage themselves in the social responsibility. Our role is to provide the content for the CSR activities to be done and how to follow the recommendations made by the students later on.”
JK group is planning to invest Rs 45 crore for developing this campus for training aspiring youth of the country in promising areas of employment. The management institutions, though will be initially running the MBA/PGDBM programs, would later expand in specialised areas such as marketing, finance, IT, HR, International Business (IB) etc. The JK business school will manage its resources and replenishing them.
The B-School has also added CSR as a part of its curriculum in all the courses keeping an eye on the job opportunities for the students in the corporate houses. Reena further shared, “CII also organises lectures by experts from the companies that have successfully implemented CSR model. We were associated with about 10 companies last year and about 30 companies are expected to visit us this year. Students learn about integrating CSR in the whole loop of the corporate system. This added subject will enhance the insight of the students about the role of CSR in corporate houses.”