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Media enquiries
should be directed to: (Please use this contact for media
enquiries only ).
Dr. Pragnya Ram
Group Executive President
Corporate Communications & CSR
Aditya Birla Management Corporation Private Limited
Aditya Birla Centre
1st Floor, 'C' Wing
S.K. Ahire Marg
Worli
Mumbai 400 030.
telephone:
91-22-6652 5000 /
2499 5000
fax:
91-22-6652 5741/ 42
email: pragnya.ram@adityabirla.com
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objectives
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Located in an extremely backward region of Palamu
in the Garhwa District of Jharkhand, Aditya Birla
Chemicals (India) Limited (ABCIL), presents a story
of remarkable courage and determination in bringing
about a revolutionary social change.
Communities
living in this region of Jharkhand have no great
affinity for strangers. A long history of exploitation
by 'outsiders' has made them wary
and untrustworthy of any face. But this expression
becomes a thing of the past, as their guard drops
and reticence gives way to a warm welcome, when
a particular group of outsiders — ABCIL Jan
Seva Trust Team, comes visiting.
The ABCIL Jan Seva Trust was established in 2000.
Undeterred by the challenges presented, the trust
led by Mr. S.S. Gupta, Mrs. Asha Gupta, Mr. Shatrughan
Singh, Mr. Ajit Sharma, Mr. Rakesh Tiwari, Dr. R.N.
Singh and Mr. Babban Ram has been putting in relentless
efforts for the upliftment of the community in Palamu.
They work in five priority areas of education and
capacity building, health and family welfare, economic
self-reliance and watershed development, infrastructure
development and social reforms.
Besides our initiatives in the five focused areas,
a greater need was felt to address the issue of
family welfare as a priority thrust in the region,
so that the impact of other initiatives can be lasting
and truly beneficial. With this assessment, we embarked
upon our journey to address a long cherished
need of family welfare in the adjoining community.
We have been contributing to the National Family
Welfare Programme through effective and efficient
strategies that inspire people’s choice for
reproductive healthcare and a small family norm.
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Our
main objectives include |
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To
provide need based reproductive health services
to the rural community |
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To
improve the quality of life by providing community
health care |
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Motivating target groups to adopt small family
norms |
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To
ensure sustainability of the project by community
participation |
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To
reduce the maternal mortality and infant mortality
rate |
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Care
and cure of sexually transmitted diseases |
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AIDS
awareness |
To
achieve these objectives in the circumstances Garhwa
District presented before us, looked like an insurmountable
challenge.
As per the 2001 census, Jharkhand has a total population
of 26.9 million with an annual growth rate of 23.2
per cent and an even higher rate of 29 per cent
in the Garhwa district.
The estimates provided by the sample registration
system (SRS) show the crude birth rate (CBR) at
26.3 per 1000 population. And more than half the
births in the state are higher order births (three
or more) and a quarter of the women have birth intervals
of less than 24 months.
Only
a quarter of the currently married women in Jharkhand
use any modern method of contraception. About 38
per cent of those currently married are using any
modern method of contraception compared with 22
per cent rural women. The proportion of pregnant
women receiving antenatal checkups in Jharkhand
is quite low, as only nine out of 10 women get just
one antenatal check-up. Awareness of HIV/AIDS in
the state is low, wherein about 85 per cent of women
have not heard about HIV/AIDS.
To
compound the problems, the literacy rate is as low
as 29 per cent with a shocking 13 per cent in women.
As a result, a majority of the people hold misconceptions
and superstitions about family welfare planning.
Limited resources, and lack of adequate medical
facilities to meet the basic health needs of life
have created a financial crunch and extremist problem
in this area.
We had to, therefore, inch our way slowly, steadily
and sensitively. We mooted a plan based on linkages
with government agencies and tried to rope in local
people.
To usher in the change, our strategy banked on awareness
and contact drives to motivate the people, encouraging
women and youth participation in projects and decision
making processes. This ensured proper mobilisation
of various available resources and doing the much
needed counselling of clients on reproductive health
and organising health checkup camps in remote areas.
Here is what our ABCIL Trust team has achieved in
just a span of six years.
We have established five family welfare centres
(FWC) including four sub-centres for conducting
health and family welfare programmes on a regular
basis. We have conducted 96 family welfare camps
and 25 AIDS awareness camps so far. The family welfare
camps are organised every month at each cluster
level, and four to six AIDS awareness camps are
organised on a yearly basis.
Regular
checkups and treatment is provided for RTIs and
STD cases. 1578 patients suffering from RTIs and
674 patients suffering from STDs have benefitted.
For antenatal and postnatal checkups and treatment,
camps are organised every thursday at FWC; 14,435
women have benefitted so far.
Immunisation camps are also organised every thursday
at FWC; the total number of beneficiaries has been
12620.
Camps for contraceptive use and condom distribution
are organised every week at the family welfare centre.
These camps have substantially increased the number
of contraceptive users to 21790, with 825 of them
as regular users and 18 per cent as irregular users.
Family planning operations have been conducted;
a total of 3235 people have benefitted, out of which
1030 are from minority communities.
Other
general health camps are organised on a regular
basis where the number of beneficiaries has gone
up from 1762 in 2001-02 to 13,262 in 2005-06 making
a total of 42,049 so far. Some other camps like
a dental camp has benefitted 1,052 people so far,
eye operation camps have improved the lives of 1,085
people in the region. The impact of our initiatives
is evident from the following
indicators:
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Maternal
and infant mortality rate has reduced from
8.6 to 5.2 per thousand. |
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Coverage
of antenatal checkup has gone up from 18 per
cent to 85 per cent |
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All children from the 0-5 years age group,
have been immunised against DPT, BCG, measles,
polio and VIT-A |
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Birth
rate reduced from 4.90 to 2.10 per thousand |
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RTI
/ STD cases have been successfully treated
and cured |
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Rate
for use of condom, oral pills, and CU-T could
be enhanced from 20 per cent to 80 per cent |
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All
3,235 cases of sterilisation have been successful |
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More
than 75 per cent deliveries have been conducted
by trained birth attendants |
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1,030
muslim women came forward for sterilisation
constituting 31per cent of total sterilisation
made |
Way
forward
ABCIL’s
work to support people and communities is part and
parcel of the company's business. The company is
proud of what it has achieved through its people
and is committed to continually improving its programme
of any development activity it undertakes. Some
of the future targets we strive to achieve for one
of our major initiatives for family welfare include:
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Emphasis
on 1,419 target couples as found out after
the survey analysis, to be covered for family
planning operation in the current year (2006-07) |
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Increased
emphasis on the social mobilisation activities |
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Mobilisation of the funds available with the
government and other NGOs and successfully
partner with them to strengthen our programme |
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Enlarging
the capacity of family welfare committees
(from 29 to 40) and empowering it to sustain
the project |
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Construction
of a 30-bed referral hospital proposed jointly
by ABCIL Jan Seva Trust and Health Department.
All infrastructural and recurring cost will
be bourne by the government |
And the journey continues to provide the blueprint
and the means that can enable the rural poor to
be masters of their own destiny.
To read about the Aditya Birla Group's community
initiatives, click here.
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