Reliance's CSR initiative in SEZ battles cynics

The programme is being executed by NGOs with the company staying in the background, signing the cheques.

Wanted: A gynaecologist to work in a mobile van. Salary: Rs 50,000 per month. Place of Posting: 12 villages in and around Gurgaon

Any takers? So far there has been none. The employers, the Rehabilitation and Resettlement( R and R) department of Reliance Industries, has been looking for people willing to work with it. The department is running a health care programme in the 45 villages covered by the Haryana Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of the company through a mobile van.

This is a part of the company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) drive which is helping it reach out to villages who have given it their land or are expected to give it in the future. It is being executed by NGOs with the company staying in the background, signing the cheques.

The mobile van patrolled the villages of Jhajjar till last week. There was a dentist most of the time, and a physician too. It needed a gynaecologist, but could never find one willing to work out of a moving clinic, R and R officials say.

The van is moving to 12 villages in the Gurgaon district and efforts have been doubled to get a gynaecologist in the hope that proximity to the city will make the job attractive.

The dentist in the van, Sulakshana, who earns around Rs 30,000 per month is cheerful as she fills a cavity in the tooth of a villager in Fatehpur in Jhajjar. This is probably the last tooth she will fill in Jhajjar in her nomadic existence over the last year.

While she will continue to work out of a mobile clinic in Gurgaon villages, she can at least go back to her home in the city occasionally. The services are being run by an NGO started by the Jagdish Anand group.

"The NGO runs the show, but we foot the bills," said a Reliance official. The villagers of Fatehpur most of whom had to part with land to RIL are cynical about the services and are taking the help offered by the clinic with a pinch of salt.

The services are perceived as temporary by the villagers and an ulterior motive is often ascribed, at least by some of the villagers. Chandu, a village close to Fatehpur in Jhajjar district, in the SEZ is not enamoured by the mobile van.

"The van used to pass by our village daily. But never once did it stop here and offer us medicine and succour. They are catering only to those villages which have agreed to give them land,'' says a villager from the Chandu village.

The village has refused to give any land and is now bitterly waiting for the inevitable acquisition by the government. Reliance officials, however, deny that services are in any way linked with the acquisition of land to the company.

"The services are open to all and the health clinics are here to stay," an official said. The NGO coordinator, Vijay Tanwar, says that services are provided in 12 villages as only these have been identified by the company.

Reliance has been tying up with NGOs for most of its CSR activities. The special relationship with the villages makes the task tough for Reliance which has been acquiring land from all of them. Land prices have gone up and land has even been acquired for Rs 22 lakh an acre.

The NGO connection in a way has also helped the company reach out to the people. In Gurgaon's 23 villages falling under the SEZ, the company is running Drishtimitra, an eye care programme alongwith an NGO Niramaya, an outfit of the Ahuja eye hospital, a well known name in the area.

Villagers are being given eye check ups by doctors of Niramaya and glasses and surgeries are sponsored by Reliance. Hitender Ahuja, medical director, Niramaya Charitable Trust said that one village has been fully covered so far, since the project started a month ago.

He said the target was to cover 48 villages in two years. He added their next stop would be the Jhandsa village.