9 companies presented with FICCI CSR Awards

NEW DELHI, 21 February 2019:  Nine companies were awarded the prestigious 17th FICCI CSR Awards today at the FICCI CSR Summit and Awards. An eminent jury, chaired by Mr. Ajay Shankar, Former Secretary, DIPP & Chair, 17^thFICCI CSR Awards Jury Committeeselected the awardees from an exhaustive list of 120 companies after six months of rigorous assessment.

FICCI CSR Summit and Awards is an annual event of the FICCI Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence that promotes sharing, acknowledging CSR Best practices, opportunities for partnerships, scaling and replicating CSR programs and was instituted in 1999 by FICCI.

The theme of the Summit & Awards this year was 'Maximizing Impact of CSR through Enterprise Development Model'.

Ms. Rajashree Birla, Chairperson FICCI CSR & Community Development Committee, invoked the Gandhian philosophy of moral responsibility to bring about a change. The propagation of khadi by Gandhiji, she said, has today become a movement and an enterprise development model.

She said that the entrepreneurial instincts of tens of millions of India had given rise to over 36 million MSMEs. People of this country have taken the enterprise development solutions for the empowerment of the vulnerable sections. The time now was to propel it to the next level. 

While presenting the award, Mr. Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Government of India, spotlighted the significance of CSR, stating that corporates and society were not mutually exclusive, one cannot survive without the other. Therefore, CSR should not be seen as mere responsibility but a mutually beneficial relationship for both.

The summit deliberated on various aspects of incorporating Enterprise Development Model in CSR, the impact of CSR in India such as on Enterprise development solution for empowerment of vulnerable communities, Social Enterprises: Creating local ecosystems, building leaders and entrepreneurs for social and economic impact, Aspirational Districts: Partnerships for Results and Story Telling for Change