Government Committed To ‘Garibi Mithao’ Rather Than ‘Garibi Hatao’: Piyush Goyal

‘Time To Scale Up Small CSR Projects’

New Delhi (PIB-GR-TYP-BIN): Mr. Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy said that we in Government are committed to ‘Garibi Mithao’ rather than ‘Garibi Hatao’. While speaking at the 8th Global CSR Summit cum Responsible Organization Excellence Awards 2015-16, on March 31, Mr. Goyal said, “India cannot afford to have even one person who does not have a decent quality of life.”

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Goyal said that we need to take the encouragement of these awards to the small scale industries rather than the corporate. These industries should be inspired to do better work by getting support for their CSR projects from big corporate. The Minister emphasized the need to increase scale of CSR Projects and stated, “We need to integrate public good, Corporate Social Responsibility, innovation and scale it up so that impact on society is visible and sustainable.

I am sure; organizations like ASSOCHAM can act like a bridge between the stakeholders and help to scale up CSR projects.” Mr. Goyal took the opportunity to reiterate the fact that Government and Private partnerships in CSR projects can lead to better welfare of society.

Advocating the welfare work done by Public Sector Undertakings, Mr. Goyal said that to my knowledge Public Sector Undertakings have been doing CSR well before the Company’s Law Amendment came.

So, for PSUs, CSR, is not something that the law mandated two years ago. They have been doing this for years and years all together. “The PSUs under my ministries alone, in the last year and a half, spent Rs. 2,200 crore, to make over 1,20,000 toilets in rural schools especially in inaccessible and remote areas of the country. There is a lot of good work happening in PSUs”, Mr. Goyal added.

(Source: PIB/GR/TYP/BIN/USPA/WN/IAIJ)