With growing water stress over the past few decades, Ambuja has been addressing water scarcity issues especially in our communities where erratic rainfall and inadequate irrigation coverage has increased groundwater usage in farming, leading to steadily depleting water beds.
This is what was being faced by local residents of over 50 water-stressed villages in Rajasthan and Maharashtra who realised that the only way out was to tackle this issue head-on. Their local representatives (panchayats) approached Ambuja’s CSR arm, the Ambuja Cement Foundation to provide a viable plan with technical knowhow.
First, a detailed site study was conducted in partnership with ATE Chandra Foundation, which revealed 17 defunct water bodies could be restored once the pits were cleaned and desilted. Community members stepped in with tractors and excavators and these volunteers successfully unearthed over 1,66,000 cubic metres of silt that was spread over agricultural land.
Water storage capacity expanded by 166 million litres and 550 tube wells recharged. With the immense benefit staring them in the face, the villagers readily shouldered 75% of the project cost. The arrival of monsoons gave a fresh lease of life to the water bodies and rejuvenated the villages.
spirit to systematically shape our destiny and create a shared prosperous future.
Community
Developments and key initiatives |
KPIs |
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COMMUNITY SUPPORT |
− ACF continued to focus on its key intervention areas while supporting national efforts in countering the COVID-19 pandemic |
` 64 . 41 crorespent on CSR activities In CY2021 2 . 8 millionlives touched In CY2021 |
At ACF, we harness the power of collaboration—among communities, governments (at the state and central levels), NGOs and corporates—to promote inclusive development. We strongly believe that for a business to prosper, it is essential to foster the prosperity of the communities within which it operates. Our communityspecific interventions start well before we secure land for our operating sites and we remain keenly involved in the holistic development of the lives of the people in and around our areas of operation. Our aim is to maximise people’s participation in community development by creating village-level institutions, and to invest in capacity building to ensure that the implemented projects are self-sustaining.
Our CSR activities are governed by our Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Committees with Independent Directors at the helm. Our well-formulated CSR Policy lays down in detail our CSR objectives and work in accordance with Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013.
Our community initiatives are carried out across 11 states around our manufacturing sites. Besides, we run the following projects:
In 2021, despite the challenges created by the pandemic, we continued with our community interventions in the designated areas while undertaking other initiatives to safeguard the communities against coronavirus and participating in the immunisation programme rolled out by the government.
Our social intervention areas
Water Resource Management
Agro-based livelihood
Skill-based livelihood
Health and sanitation
Women empowerment
Education
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT TO MAXIMISE IMPACT
We have consciously focused on partnering with the community to ensure that the interventions were community-led. This is essential to amplify the impact of all development projects. We require the communities to invest in the initiatives, through financial support or in-kind contributions, to ensure that they come to value these projects and they themselves become agents of change. Keeping this objective in mind, we have organised farmers’ clubs, farmer producers’ organisations, women’s federations, water-user groups, village development committees among others. ACF also focuses on developing village-level leaders for effective on-ground execution of the projects. Deloitte was engaged to conduct an impact assessment of core (mining) villages in Rabriyawas, Rajasthan. The study highlighted the positive change in terms of water availability, improved livelihoods and overall growth.
Water conservation has been of paramount importance to Ambuja Cement since the beginning of its operations. We are enabling communities to face challenges such as water scarcity by promoting water conservation, ensuring adequate availability of clean and safe drinking water, water quality testing and encouraging judicial water use through the use of sprinklers and micro irrigation system.
Partnering with like-minded organisations, corporates and government institutions, our water conservation initiatives have helped transform the scenario in some of the critically water-starved areas of the country. We ensure that no water source or protected area (nationally or internationally) is disturbed by water withdrawal. We ensure sustainable withdrawal, water efficiency, water harvesting and groundwater recharge to help maintain water tables.
We have developed a water sustainability risk assessment framework in association with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to understand business risks as well as the basin risk, and identify units with water stress. This assessment also uses the WBCSD Global Water Tool. Two of our plants are in water scarce regions. We comply with all regulatory requirements on water.
Our water conservation initiatives have led to our inclusion in the ‘A’ list of CDP, which is a testimony to our commitment to our sustainability mission. We are the only company in the world to have achieved this feat.
Key highlights 2021
Through our Agro-Based Livelihood Initiatives, we are building farmers’ capacities, introducing science-based farming practices and encouraging enhanced use of technology. The initiatives are being implemented in 17+ locations across nine states, covering more than 2 lakh farmers. Besides, we are also encouraging projects related to animal husbandry including dairy, poultry, aquaculture, goat farming among others. Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) remains a core interest, which now covers 1.73 lakh farmers. During the pandemic, we extended these initiatives by offering insurance opportunities to individuals who had lost their regular source of income.
Key highlights 2021
The Skill & Entrepreneurship Development Institutes (SEDI) is an initiative of ACF which aims to provide youth with training, employment and business opportunities to help them achieve their aspirations in life and lift their families out of poverty. Currently, we have more than 35 SEDI centres active in 10 states across the country. We continue to partner with other organisations including corporates to train SEDI students and provide them with placements.
Sattva Consulting undertook an impact assessment study of SEDI, highlighting the best practices of the peer organisation along with benchmarking.
Youths trained through
SEDI till date
Key highlights 2021
This remained a core focus area, given the adverse impact of the pandemic on public health. During the year, we widened the scope of our intervention and included mental health under the ambit of our health-related initiatives. Besides, malnutrition also emerged as an important area of action.
Women and adolescent girls
benefited through the Menstrual
Hygiene Management Program
Key highlights 2021
CARING FOR THE TRUCKER COMMUNITY
Truckers are a major stakeholder at Ambuja Cement, with ~ 6,000 truckers entering and exiting our plants every day. Ensuring their health and safety is a matter of high priority for us.
Long and irregular work hours, extended periods of stay away from their families, challenging road conditions and stress affect the physical and mental well-being of truckers. Through frequent camps, vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and poor eyesight emerged as common health risk indicators. Under its health program, ACF, along with its partners, has been focusing on the health and general well-being of truckers, holding frequent health camps and awareness sessions to inculcate responsible behaviour among the community. Truckers were also a major component stakeholder group for its initiatives during the pandemic and vaccination drive.
In Bhatapara, ACF has tied up with the government hospital to conduct HIV/AIDS screening camps on a quarterly basis at the truck yard. Through awareness sessions and frequent meetings the truckers union and transport association encourage their truckers to visit these camps. This awareness creation has led to truckers freely coming forth to get tested and are incorporating lifestyle changes.
Women play a critical role in inclusive development and, thus, national progress. We focus on empowering rural women and initiated projects like drinking water supply and health and sanitation and engage them in social and economic activities to ensure overall rural prosperity.
Key highlights 2021
Apart from improving school infrastructure, we focus on programmes aimed at enhancing access to quality education in the locations where we operate. To make learning more engaging and interesting we are helping introduce teaching aids in classes and building capabilities of students and teachers. Ambuja Manovikas Kendra (AMK), a school for specially-abled students, caters to 134 children. During 2021, 106 of them were enrolled under regular schooling programme, 10 under homebased rehabilitation and 18 at the skill development centre.
Our ‘Make India Play’ programme is gaining traction in schools. We believe that sports plays an important role in the development of the country’s youth.
Key highlights 2021
CONTINUING SUPPORT DURING THE PANDEMIC
With the pandemic still impacting the lives and livelihoods of communities across the country, we continued to provide multi-pronged support. This included building public awareness of Do’s and Don’ts, as well as promoting the government’s immunisation drive. We trained community members as COVISainiks to volunteer in activities to combat the pandemic and assist the local health system. We also undertook various initiatives to support individuals who lost their jobs due to the lockdowns.
Community members from ACF
villages were vaccinated
Key highlights 2021
MAKING POSITIVE IMPACT AT MARWAR
ACF has been actively engaged in the socio-economic development initiatives in villages around our plant at Marwar since 2005, when we began talks for acquiring land for our operations. The area is a water stressed region and thus water resource management was a priority. ACF began by reviving one of Marwar’s major ponds, Lakholav, which is the community’s lifeline and the main source of water. ACF is also working on other initiatives in the region such as skill-building, health and sanitation, promotion of rural infrastructure and women empowerment to improve the socio-economic status of the communities.
ACF today works in 12 core villages of Marwar, reaching out to 35,000 people directly or indirectly through its CSR initiatives.
ACHIEVEMENTS