Tata Motors’ CSR Initiatives Transform 1 Million Lives in FY24

KOCHI:
Tata Motors, India’s leading automobile company, today released its 10th Annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report, celebrating the transformative impact of its strategic community interventions. Highlighting the sustainable impact made on the lives of over 1 million people, this milestone report, titled “Building Together a Million Dreams,” is dedicated to the crucial role that partnerships have played throughout this decade-long journey. With more than 40 percent of beneficiaries belonging to the SC and ST communities, Tata Motors has significantly broadened its CSR footprint beyond the proximate communities, reaching 94 aspirational districts across 26 states and 8 union territories.

Commenting on the launch of the 10th Annual CSR Report, Vinod Kulkarni, Head of CSR at Tata Motors, said, “We are immensely proud of the strides we have made in transforming over one million lives through our committed CSR initiatives. Our innovative ‘More for Less for More’ strategy has empowered us to drive efficiencies, adopt technology, optimise resources and scale up programmes, broadening our reach and deepening our impact nationwide. This success is a testament to the unwavering support of our partners and the trust of the communities we serve. As we advance, we remain dedicated to addressing critical social issues and leveraging government schemes to promote sustainable development in education, health, employability, and environmental protection.”

Throughout the year, Tata Motors emphasised on the convergence of strength across the government, non-government, and private sectors to implement focussed social interventions in Health (Aarogya), Education (Vidyadhanam), Employability (Kaushalya), and Environment (Vasundhara), with a special emphasis on Water Conservation and Integrated Village Development.

Key highlights of Tata Motors’ CSR report for FY24
Advancing Water Security
Through a partnership with NAAM Foundation, MGNREGA Department, and the Government of Maharashtra, Tata Motors has rejuvenated and developed 106 water bodies in rural Maharashtra under the Government of India’s Amrit Sarovar Mission. This initiative to date has created a capacity of 1,860 million litres of water across Palghar, Pune, and Satara districts, enhancing agricultural productivity, raising water tables, providing access to potable water, and ensuring year-round irrigation.

Enhancing Rural Livelihoods Through Integrated Community Development
Tata Motors adopts a holistic approach to engage with rural communities with a specific focus on strengthening local governance. The Integrated Village Development Programme (IVDP), which began in the tribal block of Jawahar in the Palghar district of Maharashtra, has now been replicated in proximate communities of other plant locations like Pune, Sanand, Jamshedpur and Lucknow.

Expanding its engagement to five-gram panchayats in Jawahar, IVDP has reduced migration from 45 percent to 25 percent, increased average household income by 60 percent, and ensured year-round availability of water in this tribal belt. Tata Motors has transformed the barren hamlet of Navapara in Ahmedabad district, inhabited by an underprivileged tribal community. With year-round access to potable water, 190 of the 230 households have adopted fishery as the key source of income. Migration of the community has reduced by 40 percent and there is a 10 percent decline in the rate of school dropouts

Creating a Greener and More Sustainable Environment
In collaboration with the Government of Maharashtra and the BAIF Institute under the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA scheme, Tata Motors has planted 1.7 million saplings across Palghar district in Maharashtra, benefiting 13,000 farmers and converting 13,000 acres of unutilised farmland to productive use.

Tata Motors’ Urban Forestry initiative, in partnership with the TERRE Policy Centre, has planted 125,000 trees over a cumulative area of 200 hectares in and around Pune. These urban forests absorb 300,000 kg of carbon annually, protect biodiversity, and improve air quality.

Empowering Students through Enhanced Educational Support
The Engineering NEET Admission Bridge Accelerated Learning Engagement (ENABLE) Programme, in collaboration with Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, Avanti Fellows, and Ex-Navodaya Foundation, supports over 550 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas with coaching, live classes, and mock tests for JEE and NEET exams. Annually, ENABLE coaches and counsels 18,000 science students of Std XI and Std XII via a digital platform to prepare for medical and engineering entrance examinations. In 2023-24, 27 percent of students from the ENABLE online programme qualified for IIT JEE while 79 percent qualified in the NEET exams.

Building New Career Paths for Youth
Learn, Earn and Progress (LEAP), a flagship social responsibility programme, imparts auto trade skills in Motor Mechanic Vehicles (MMV) to youths from underserved communities, especially school dropouts who lack the skills to be employed. Partnering with ITIs, Skills for Progress (SKIP), and Tata Motors dealers, it provides three months of theory training followed by nine months of On-Job-Training (OJT). With its footprint in 16 states, LEAP trains around 1500 youth annually, ~80 percent of whom get placed within or outside the Tata Motors ecosystem. A significant segment of LEAP’s beneficiaries are first-generation learners.

Improving the livelihood of the tribals’
Despite having first and natural rights over forest produce, tribal families from Junnar and Ambegaon talukas in Pune district of Maharashtra were not permitted by the government to undertake commercial purchase or sale of hirda berries. In 2020, a Farmers Producer Group (FPG) was established under the guidance of Tata Motors and Shashwat Sanstha to train and employ local youth for the procurement and sale of hirda.

The FPG has grown from 300 families in 11 villages to over 5,000 families across four talukas. The real-time, fair pricing provided to the farmers has resulted in generating INR 4 crore in revenue over four years. This initiative has enhanced family incomes, arrested migration, and promoted sustainable agricultural practices.

Holistic Health Initiatives
In 2023-24 the Malnutrition Treatment Centre (MTC) in Jamshedpur, in partnership with Parivar Kalyan Sansthan (PKS), extended its healthcare services in remote areas and increased capacity-building programmes for the Anganwadi workers. MTC, which treats 5,500 children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) annually, achieved more than two-fold growth in its outreach.

Building on this success, Tata Motors has expanded its efforts to combat malnutrition by collaborating with the Institute of Social Development (ISD) and the Child Development Department in Uttarakhand to establish the Parvarish Kendras and improve the quality of life of vulnerable communities.

Strengthening Employee Volunteering
Tata Motors undertook transformative measures to fortify volunteering as an organisational culture. The company reported the highest-ever employee participation of 59 percent as they volunteered 1,17,000 hours for community service.