)
The corporate sector has responded positively to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day call that it build toilets in schools as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes. Two of India’s biggest companies, Tata Consultancy Services and Bharti, on Monday committed Rs 100 crore each to build toilets in schools for girls. Coca-Cola said it hoped to further build on its ongoing sanitation programme to construct toilets in schools.
The PM in his address to the nation from Red Fort on Friday had announced his government would launch a ‘Clean India’ campaign with the objective that “all schools in the country should have toilets, with separate ones for girls”.
The response from the corporate world has been positive. TCS said on Monday it would spend Rs 100 crore for financing hygienic sanitation facilities for girl students across 10,000 schools. “We firmly believe that achieving the mission of providing hygienic sanitation for girl students will have a tangible impact on the level of education achievement and development of India's next generation,” said managing director N Chandrasekaran.
Bharti Foundation pledged Rs 100 crore to build toilets in Ludhiana over the next three years. The Foundation, development arm of Bharti Enterprises, said the programme was inspired by the PM's call.
It will invest up to Rs 100 crore in constructing toilets while reaching out to every rural household lacking such facilities in the district, over the next three years. In addition to rural household sanitation, the 'Satya Bharti Abhiyan' will also invest in improving sanitation facilities in government schools in rural Ludhiana by building new toilets for girls where no such facilities exist.
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola India, which has an ongoing water and sanitation programme for schools, said the firm planned to build on this in years to come. The beverage company, along with partners NDTV and UN Habitat, has built toilets in 350 schools across 20 states, the spokesperson added. “We are hoping to complete 600 schools by 2014 and target to reach a modest number of 1,000 schools by 2016.”
Apart from toilets, the Coca-Cola Foundation also provides sports infrastructure, playing grounds and swings for primary schools. “Trees are a part of his programme, as is drinking water, libraries, etc,” said the spokesperson. The project is being implemented with the help of five non-governmental organisations. The project was started four years ago. Coca-Cola and its partners World Vision and vendors have put in Rs 30 crore in the programme, with Coca-Cola Foundation along committing Rs 12 crore.
It has become mandatory from April 2014 for corporate sector to set aside two per cent of net profits towards CSR activities. The PM said in his Independence Day address that this target of constructing toilets should be achieved within one year with the help of state governments and on the next 15th August, “we should be in a firm position to announce that there is no school in India without separate toilets for boys and girls”.
Agency reports from Uttar Pradesh have claimed that in separate incidents, ever since Modi’s Independence Day speech, six newly-wed women walked out of their in-laws’ homes to protest lack of toilet facilities. “Pehle shuchalaya, phir devalaya (first toilets than places of worship),” Modi had famously told a gathering of college students at New Delhi’s Talkatora Stadium on October 2, last year.
