Corporate Social Responsibility
Creating positive impact in communities through service
In keeping with the ethos instilled by the founder Lt. Shri. Qimat Rai Gupta, Havells sustains a Social agenda by initiatives, both in our profit as well as after profit pursuits. We follow a socially positive agenda and work consistently to contribute to the betterment of our society and its future. With the belief that business is an active entity of the society and the economy, the company plays a strong role in nation- building. Our initiatives revolve around our concerns for the nutrition, health and education of children.
The Mid Day Meal Program
The Havells mid-day meal program for school going children is our flagship CSR activity and was introduced in 2005 with the stated aim of improving the health and nutrition levels of students in government school and improving their attendance and learning outcomes. The program began with coverage of 1,500 students. In 2015, ten years since inception, the Havells Mid-Day meal scheme caters to over 58,000 students from 688 schools every day in the Alwar region of Rajasthan.
Our nutritious meals are cooked in a state of the art kitchen with fresh ingredients and high levels of automation, and delivered on time to different schools via our own fleet of vehicles. Havells has employed a dedicated staff of about 160 people including cooks, helpers, drivers and distributors to ensure timeliness, quality and hassle free provision of meals every day. The program uses proper government approved diet charts that are used as guides to prepare weekly menus to suit the tastes and nutritional requirements of children.
The Mid Day meal program was honored with the Child Rights champion award by CRY in 2014-15.
Sanitation program
Open defecation is one of the biggest challenges faced by the country. In 2014, we started building bio-toilets in the schools where we served mid-day meal. So far we have built over 2050 bio-toilets in over 250 government schools. While building toilets is one thrust of making India open defecation free, we realized that just building the required infrastructure does not guarantee use or implementation of healthy practices. Not only it is important to generate awareness about hygiene and proper sanitation practices to help make the endeavor sustainable but also a change of perception and behavior amongst the target masses for a better and brighter future was equally important. Havells envisioned WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Program in almost 100 Government Schools of Alwar where the ecofriendly bio toilets have already been constructed. The program aims at making school children aware of the importance of sanitation and to bring about a change so that they can incorporate good hygiene standards and practices for better health and community hygiene. Also they could encourage others in their homes and social groups to adopt hygienic practices. We aim to build similar toilets in another 150 schools by end of this year taking the number of schools to 300. The specialty of these toilets is that they do not need any sewage system. The four layer system works on a bacteria created by DRDO which converts human waste into methane gas and the water that comes out is almost 90% pathogen free which could be used for gardening or ground water recharge. These modular toilets are built with concrete that are easy to install and are more durable than conventional toilets.
Environment
Apart from this Havells has been focusing on tree plantation nearby its manufacturing plants. We have planted over 10,000 trees in and around our plants in Alwar, Rajasthan and Baddi, Himachal Pradesh.
Promoting education
Havells also facilitates education by providing need and merit based scholarships to children at the Ashoka University at Sonipat.
We continue to contribute towards the betterment of the society.