JK Paper is committed to take forward its CSR initiatives through building on what has been achieved so far and taking up new initiatives. Focussed on five key areas such as education, health care, skill development, livelihood interventions and environment, JK Paper is playing the right note.
Long before CSR became a mandatory part of business in India, JK Organization has been actively involved with the communities that it operates in. JK Paper, a unit of JK Organization is India’s largest producer of branded papers and a leading player in Coated Papers and High-end Packaging Boards. The Company began its journey more than half a century ago with 18,000 tons per annum capacity paper plant. It has grown over the years and maintained its quality leadership position. The Company has two integrated Pulp and Paper Plants at Strategic Locations viz; Unit JK Paper Mills (JKPM) in East (Rayagada, Odisha) and Unit Central Pulp Mills (CPM) in West (Songadh, Gujarat). Our current combined annual capacity is 4, 55,000.
JK Paper always believed that caring and sharing is the essence of ethical enterprise. In our research, we found that the key issues faced by these communities were illiteracy and lack of basic social infrastructure. The company actively contributes in helping to address these issues. We believe in team effort and HR has been playing a catalytic role in this effort towards building and sustaining CSR initiatives at both our Units. Our CSR activities are focussed on five key areas such as education, health care, skill development, livelihood interventions and environment.
1. Education
JK Paper through its schools has been imparting quality education from the primary to the tertiary level. The three schools near our factories at Odisha and Gujarat make all out efforts to reach out to the weaker sections through enrolling students from less-privileged sections of the community in that vicinity.
Both our units JKPM & CPM have also been organising special programmes for tribal children periodically, so that they can compete with other students. Towards promoting computer literacy, the unit CPM has been running computer certificate courses through a computer training centre since last five years. A large number of students, mostly from tribal community, have successfully completed these courses.
There are communities near our plants that have never got access to formal education. Our Adult Education Program Model has successfully enabled many of these illiterate villagers, particularly women belonging to backward strata of the society, to become literates through community based Adult Education Centres.
The twin objectives of the Adult Education model is to instil awareness among them to be self-dependant with the tool of education and ensure that their offspring are not deprived of education. The Adult Education movement at JK Paper has helped over 11,000 tribal adult illiterates, especially women to become literate ever since this initiative started almost 10 years ago. Apart from bringing basic literacy, adult education has brought in a remarkable change in the lives of these tribal women. Through these initiatives, we have been able to support the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan in its efforts towards reducing school dropout ratio. Our efforts have been appreciated by the local community.
In addition to these, at our Unit JKPM we have been taking special initiative for mentally challenged children through Nutan Gyanvardhini, a special school for the Educational Rehabilitation of the Children with Special Needs (CWSN). The school, organized in collaboration with the district administration, Rayagada has 30 mentally challenged children of nearby areas on its rolls.
Efforts are made for the vocational rehabilitation of these children as well. Training in Tailoring has been launched for four girls and training for Gardening and Paper Envelope making has also been identified as a part of their vocational rehabilitation. Parents’ meetings are also organized at regular intervals to create an interface for assessing the development of the CWSNs. General health check-up camps are organized twice a month with support from unit JKPM for these children. Children are brought into school and taken back to their home by the school bus regularly.
2. Healthcare
We have been making concerted efforts to extend basic healthcare facilities to the villages. Health camps and Mobile Dispensaries have been organized from time to time for various ailments such as cataract and others. The services include free medicines and sometimes free stay in camps, for the tribal villagers. Mobile dispensaries are a regular feature where fully equipped vehicles with qualified medical staff travel to distant and remote locations to extend treatment to those who need it.
Dr. T K Mandal
Vice President – HR, JK Paper Ltd
Dr. TK Mandal is the Head of Corporate HR as Vice President with JK Paper Limited. He has been heading HR at JK Paper since December 2006.
Prior to this, he was the Aditya Birla Group for 11 years, out of which 10 years at Grasim’s Staple Fibre Plant at Nagda in M.P. as Sr. General Manager (Personnel & HRD) and 1 year as the Asst. Vice President (HR & Admin) of the Aditya Birla Insulators at Halol near Godhra. He is a B.Tech.(Hons) from IIT Kharagpur and also an M.Tech in Industrial Management.
Committed health intervention through these Health camps & Mobile Dispensaries besides maternal and child health services at the doorstep have successfully reduced the incidence of health hazards in the villages. Simultaneously, the Community Health Facilitators (CHFs) have been explaining need for safe health practices among pregnant and lactating mothers.
Our CSR team at unit JKPM also conducts training programmes on Adolescent Reproductive & Sexual Health (ARSH) and also Life – Skill education for Balika Mandals. These Balika Mandals involve tribal adolescent girls: they in turn impart the learning obtained from these training to the community as Community Health Facilitators (CHFs).
3. Skill development
As mentioned earlier, the units of JK Paper are located close to the tribal belts. They have been making special efforts to enhance the employability of tribal youth by organizing different need based Skill Development Program.
In order to build vocational skills among tribal youth, JK Paper has adopted an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) at Ukai, Gujarat under the PPP model launched by Government of India in the year 2008.
With the direct involvement of our local management and technology leaders, ITI, Ukai is now recognised as an example for providing training in skills. This ITI centre has been declared as Centre of Excellence at an all India level.
Besides upgrading the infrastructure, ITI Ukai, with support from unit CPM, introduced trades that are in demand, thereby increasing the employability of the local youth. We also take advantage of the availability of the trained personnel for our operations from ITI, making it a win-win situation for both the company and the community. We have also arrived at a structured collaboration model whereby ITI Ukai provides study material and other assistance for training the non-qualified workmen of our Unit CPM for short term courses. Under this initiative, the training faculty are engineers from our plant and ITI provides GCVT certificates after their successful training.
Unit JKPM similarly has been taking up activities towards enhancing skill development for employability of tribal youth. It has been providing adolescent entrepreneurs training in tailoring through constant handholding support. A tailoring cum embroidery centre has been created exclusively for SC/ST adolescent girls. Employability among the tribal youth is also enhanced through different other vocational trainings like driving and beautician courses.
4. Livelihood interventions
Our Odisha plant, over the years has been acting as a catalyst to form Self Help Groups (SHGs) for women. These have helped to improve the standard of living of their families by enabling them earn additional income.
- HR should play a catalytic role in the effort towards building and sustaining CSR initiatives in an organization.
- JK’s CSR activities are focussed on five key areas such as education, healthcare, skill development, livelihood interventions and environment.
- Apart from bringing basic literacy, adult education has brought in a remarkable change in the lives of these tribal women.
- The Human Resources function facilitates visits and active involvement of senior managers in different CSR activities round the year.
- They have helped to sensitise the staffs at all levels on the need for building a socially responsible corporate brand.
Our CSR team continuously work with the women through Income Generation Programmes (IGP) like Phenyl Making, Detergent Making, Paper Plate making, Turmeric making. Producer groups consisting of the members of different members of the Self Help Groups have been formed in collaboration with Odisha Livelihood Mission. These are supported by encouraging the families to take up Poultry farming as a backyard initiative.
Individuals with entrepreneurship skills are also encouraged to set up micro enterprises like Tiffin Stall, Cycle repairing Mart, Fancy Store, etc., which have gradually become their principal source of income. The micro savings generated through the SHGs has substantially increased the economic independence of tribal families and freed them from the clutches of money lenders.
The empowerment of women members of SHGs is now reflected in the active participation in Gram Sabha deliberations and a few of these have been elected to three Tier Panchayat Raj Governance System.
Our unit in Odisha (JKPM) has been helping to create additional income. Besides helping them form Farmers’ clubs, it also organises Crop specific training programmes. Recently in association with Odisha Government’s Agricultural Department some of these farmers were selected and taken for an exposure visit to successful agricultural models.
5. Respect for environment
Right from inception “Caring for Environment” has been an important aspect of our business. This has been done by adopting modern and environment-friendly technologies and taking efforts for increasing the green cover. Modern technology along with other resource conservation measures such as better house-keeping, re-cycling of water have led to lower specific consumption of inputs (i.e. lower inputs per unit of output). This has also led to lower emissions (Gas & Air) as well. Our dependency on Fossil fuels has also been reducing
because more energy is generated out of renewable sources.
Our Social Farm Forestry Programmes has been adding to the green cover year after year. The cumulative acreage under Farm forestry activities have crossed 1,30,000 Ha, thanks to sustained efforts since early 1990s and aggressive efforts in recent years.
Based on recent ‘India specific study’ conducted by international watchdog RISI, we are proud to say that our plantation efforts have generated 11% share in nationwide farm forestry being promoted by pulp and paper Industry. The Company’s in-house ultra-modern nurseries are now producing close to 20 Million clonal plants to sustain the plantation drive in a cost effective manner. Farm forestry activities have also helped to provide substantial supplemental income to the marginal farmers.
At JK Paper, community welfare activities are considered as part of its business strategy. CSR is an important element of our organisational structure. The CSR teams are manned by qualified and passionate members. HR along with other functional divisions has been able to motivate the CSR team so much so that they now derive satisfaction from accomplishing something for the communities around. Initiatives are also being taken to keep the team up-to-date on various Central and State level programs, besides encouraging them to learn and share their experiences HC in our Group level forums.
The Human Resources function facilitates visits and active involvement of senior managers in different CSR activities round the year. These have helped to sensitise the staffs at all levels on the need for building a socially responsible corporate brand. We also encourage youngsters to invest time for community related activities.
The result of our CSR initiatives is for everyone to see. The bonding between the communities and our teams has led to a long lasting symbiotic relationship, with each helping each other on several occasions.
Since January, 2010, our CSR activities are being carried out under the umbrella of ‘SPARSH, a NGO formed under Society Registration Act 1860 in Cuttack, Odisha. This has enabled to take up developmental activities in a more effective and systematic manner in the nearby villages, of our factories, mainly unit JKPM.
‘SPARSH’ has begun to mobilize resources vide different schemes of Govt. Departments like Agriculture, Animal Resources Development, Odisha Livelihood Mission, CPDO, Office of the District Social Welfare Officer & NABARD so that beneficiaries can take advantage of these schemes.
JK Paper is committed to take forward its CSR initiatives through building on what has been achieved so far and taking up new initiatives.
