| Durga Puja, Kolkata's biggest celebration season, seems to have become the target for CSR activities by corporates. |
| Singapore Airlines, for the first time this year, has decided to distribute garments to poor school children. Explaining the rationale, Vinod Kannan, manager, East-India of Singapore Airlines, said, "Wearing new garments during Durga Puja is a tradition. But a lot of poor children do not have the money to buy clothes. So we thought of zeroing in on a school so that we could distribute garments to the children who belong to very poor families." |
| As part of its CSR activity during Durga Puja this year, Singapore Airlines chose Bess Crawford Seva Niketan, a school in the Howrah district of West Bengal. It distributed shirts and skirts to 135 students, all of whom were in the 3 to 15 age group. This effort was estimated at close to Rs 20,000. |
| Another group which is drawing the interest of corporates during Durga Puja are the dhakis (drummers) who come to Kolkata during Durga Puja from various corners of West Bengal to add cheer and music to the festivities. |
| Shalimar Paints, the third largest paint company in India, and Mysore-based N R Group, owners of the Cycle brand of incense sticks, are promoting dhakis through competitions in the city. The winners are given cash prizes. |
| Shalimar Paints has tied-up with Rotary International to organise the contests. |
| Cash awards will be given away to the three winners of the dhaki competition and the event will be shown on the regional NE Bangla television channel. |
| According to S Sarda, executive director and chief executive officer of Shalimar Paints, 'Shalimar Paints Rotary Sharod Swikrity' would accord high priority to the social commitment of the Puja organising committees for conferring the Puja excellence awards this year. So far, 225 Puja organising committees have applied. N R Group, on the other hand, has been organising dhak competition for the last three years. |
| The prizes are Rs 30,000, Rs 20,000 and Rs 10,000, for the first, second and third positions respectively. There are five special prizes of Rs 5,000 each too. |
| According to Arjun Ranga, CEO of the N R Group, "Although N R Group is into diverse businesses, our biggest revenue comes from the sale of agarbattis. Agarbatti is used in various prayers and for Kolkata we wanted to associate ourselves with Durga Puja." |
| "A lot of pandals during Durga Puja often take to playing recorded music as a substitute for the traditional dhaki's music. We therefore thought of involving dhakis throughout the puja festivities. We felt this would also ensure some sort of recognition for the dhakis which they can leverage later on," he added. |
| "Till date, all Durga Puja awards were related to pandals and its decorations. 'Rhythm Dhaker Ladai' has got puja committees to make extra effort to make their dhakis eligible for the contest," Ranga said. |
| About 45 puja committees are taking part. Dhakis say the prizes would give them recognition and bring opportunities to play during several occasions throughout the year. |
| Said Dulal Das, one of the dhakis whose team of eight members won the first prize in the dhak competition last year, "Earlier our job used to be restricted to the 45 Durga Puja days, beginning October to mid-November. But after winning the first prize last year, we now have a lot of people asking us to play at occasions like Lakshmi Puja and Ganesh Puja," |
| Das participated in the Dhaki contest during 2006 Durga Puja and won the first prize which was then Rs 5,000. |
| Another dhaki, Harahar Das, said that during Durga Puja, his team would earn close to Rs 80,000, which would be divided equally among the eight members. This used to be the amount that all of them would have to depend on for the rest of the year. |
| Playing for 5 hours ensures a payment of close to Rs 5,000 for each dhaki team. The money is divided among the dhakis and part of it also goes to the puja committee that a dhaki would belong to. |
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