Ambuja Cement to spend Rs 125 cr on CSR this year

Ambuja Cement plans to spend INR 125 crore, including INR 40 crore in Rajasthan, towards corporate social responsibility in the current fiscal. Pearl Tiwari, Ambuja Cement Foundation Director and CEO said revival of traditional water resources, rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge, healthcare support, vocational training and skill development were some of the initiatives which have been undertaken by the foundation.

“Our budget for CSR activities in the year 2019-20 is around INR 125 crore. This includes the budget of INR 40 crore for Rajasthan,” Tiwari said. She also informed that the annual increase in the CSR budget was around 10-15%.

Tiwari said that women empowerment, education, health, skill development were among other areas where the CSR budget will be spent. Ambuja Cement is engaged in manufacturing and marketing of cement and clinker for both domestic and export markets.

Recently, Ambuja Cement Foundation and AU Small Finance Bank have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a Skill Training Institute by the name of ‘AU Skills Academy’ in Jaipur district.

This partnership aims at empowering the youth between the age of 18 and 35 years by helping them gain employment and entrepreneurship opportunities through a variety of vocational skill training courses in the field of Retail Sales, Office Assistance, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Hospitality & Tourism.

“For the future, we want to scale up and access more collaboration. For example, take our salinity management project across the Gujarat coastline, which had started from 20 villages and today is in the region of 400 villages. Scale cannot happen individually, we can bring together partners, train local talent and get results. The next stage is working in new areas in the same villages, to learn new skills to understand the new challenges. The ultimate goal remains community prosperity,” Tiwari said in an interview.

For over a decade, Ambuja Cement Foundation has helped upskill young individuals through 29 of its Skill and Entrepreneurship Development Institutes (SEDI) across 10 states of India. Till date, the organization has trained more than 45,000 Rural Youth, with a placement rate of 75%.

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