Steel Authority of India Limited, besides being known as India’s largest steel producing public sector unit and one of the Maharatnas of the country, is also known as one of the most socially responsible corporate citizens of the country. The development efforts of SAIL have always been well appreciated and acknowledged. SAIL has been conferred with SCOPE Meritorious Award for Corporate Social Responsibility & Responsiveness for the year 2008-09 by the Hon’ble President of India; Annual FICCI Awards 2008-09 in the category of “The Vision Corporate Triple Impact – Business Performance : Social & Environmental Action and Globalisation Award : 2008-09” by the Hon’ble Finance Minister of India; and “Golden Peacock Award for CSR 2008-09”for the Bhilai Steel Plant.
SAIL has partnered with Smile Foundation and has lent support for two of Smile Foundation’s programmes –Smile on Wheels and Smile Twin e-Learning Programme.
Under the Smile on Wheels partnership SAIL has supported the second mobile health care unit for Delhi NCR. This unit targets approximately 1.5 lac people in urban slums of East Delhi and Noida. It brings affordable, integrated and clinically advanced, quality healthcare services within the reach of these marginalized people. The mobile hospital enables prevention, diagnosis, as well as treatment services.
Smile on Wheels takes well-equipped mobile vans along with specialized doctors, nurses and medicines to villages and slums where there are no government health care facilities or where the available services are inadequate. Each van is stationed in an urban centre usually with a static hospital that acts like a referral centre and covers the vicinity of around 25 kms visiting 2-3 villages every day. To know more about Smile on Wheels please click here
SAIL has also supported the Smile Twin e-Learning Programme as a part of its CSR initiatives. A new STeP centre has been set up in Kolkata as a result of this support. STeP is such an initiative of Smile Foundation that aims at creating a pool of young and independent people, from the marginalized section, through skill enhancement in tandem with market requirements. It is an effort towards bridging the gap between demand and supply of skilled manpower in the fast emerging services and retail sectors of modern India.
This national level programme trains the urban underprivileged adolescent youth in English Proficiency, Basic Computer Education and Soft Skills for enhancing their prospects of employment in the fast expanding retail, hospitality and BPO sectors. Besides Computer and English language, the students and beneficiaries are also to be oriented and trained on Basic Retail Management, Gender Issues, Personality Development and Career Counseling, Reproductive and Sexual Health, HIV/AIDS etc. To know more about STeP, please click here.