Sustainable Development

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Sustainable Development

Directing corporate responsibility for sustainable development
TUV Rheinland India in association with FIEO and Development Labs organised a meeting on the “Role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Sustainable Development” at Bhubaneswar on May 2, 2013. The main objective of the programme was to launch an innovative certification known as Service Quality Management System Certification. The certification, which will be provided by TUV Rheinland India, will help organizations create increased visibility by getting recognition as credible establishments that provide quality services to its stakeholders, and maintain transparency and accountability as responsible organizations. Ms Sayantani Das Sahoo, Asst. Manager, CSR and Sustainability Services, TUV, welcomed the participants and dignitaries and provided a brief outline about the services provided by his company. Mr Rohit Singh, Founder, Development Labs, in his introductory remarks, said Development Labs is a youth-led organization which works for developing the capacity of grassroots levels NGOs in order to help them serve the society in an improved way. In today’s competitive world NGOs themselves have to work in a complex environment and have multiple issues to focus on. One such dilemma faced by the NGOs is whether to concentrate on implementing projects for a better impact or to cater to monitoring and evaluation criteria of regulatory agencies or to raise funds to maintain sustainability of the projects. Development Labs does not aim at profit making but helps companies achieve impactful, measurable and sustained development through certification. Once the organization has developed its capacity it will be pitted against industry benchmarks for evaluating its performance. TUV Rheinland is a 140year-old German organisation which has worked with companies like TATA Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Ford, BAIF, KFW, WOTR and many more). The certificate is extremely useful for building credibility, better decision making, and donor and beneficiary focus. Mr C.J. Venugopal, Principal Secretary, Rural Development Department, Government of Odisha, in his address stated that corporate houses can manage their own CSR trusts by investing the money directly for development of rural society. If the funds are utilised through NGOs, at least 30-50% work will be covered which will help strengthen the lifestyle of rural people, besides creating more employment opportunities in the rural areas. He said Odisha has framed certain rules and regulations to control the NGOs, so they spend their funds according to the requirement of poor people. Mr Ganga C. Sharma, Country Head, CSR & Sustainability Services, TUV Rheinland India, said India has possibly the largest number of active non-government, not-for-profit organizations in the world. A recent study commissioned by the Government put the number of such entities, accounted for till 2009, at more than 3.3 million. In the past years the number has gone up rapidly. These civil society organisations are making constant effort towards the development of the society but since they do not run a profit making model, they mostly depend on grants or funds coming from various

national and international donor agencies. There is a major gap between the donor agency and grantee agency in terms of service quality and the expectations primarily due to the lack of credibility, capacity and technical knowhow at the grantee level and inadequate understanding of implementation challenges at the grassroots level. To bridge this gap and to create a pool of credible organisations that are implementing at the grassroots, TUV Rheinland India has come out with this innovative certification under the NGO certification programme. Mr K.K. Sahoo, Head, FIEO (Odisha Chapter) provided an overview of the role of CSR in sustainable development. He gave examples of how TATA Power has donated funds to NGOs for development of needy communities which are struggling to make a livelihood. The NGOs are running various skills development programmes for the unemployed youth to get them self-employed. These NGOs are producing various handicraft and handloom products, with ample opportunities to export and earn foreign currency. The meeting ended with a vote of thanks by Ms Sayantani Das Sahoo, Asst. Manager, CSR.

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