Bhubaneswar: Hindalco Hirakud, an Aditya Birla Group company, is making a significance difference in the tribal-dominated district of Odisha’s Sambalpur through its community development programmes like ‘Ama Pada’ in Nimpali village.
A village with just over 300 people (90% Schedule Tribes and 5% Schedule Castes), Nimpali has been handicapped by low literacy rate and backwardness.
The villagers, who are unaware of various government welfare schemes and dependent on wage labour, had been striving hard to make ends meet.
Hindalco, under the aegis of Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiative and Rural Development, decided to intervene at several levels. The Hindalco CSR team, which conducted a primary survey, revealed that most of the households don’t have toilets.
The company started construction of toilets for every household, linking it to the Central government’s Swachh Bharat mission, and succeeded in making Nimpali an open defecation-free village.
Availability of water was a major issue, so Hindalco’s CSR team dug a huge pond to make water available for villagers.
Under Project Ama Pada, Hindalco renovated dilapidated Anganwadi in Nimpali, furnishing it with better teaching and learning material to get children interested and develop them.
“We have been undertaking projects that ease the life of the people in and around our area of operation. Hindalco constantly works to maintain societal growth and meet its fundamental needs. We always aim for the community’s inclusive progress,” Hindalco Sambalpur Cluster Head Kailash Nath Pandey said about Project Ama Pada.
Sunil Kerketta, Sambalpur Municipal Corporation’s Additional Commissioner, lauded Hindalco’s efforts in providing basic infrastructure to Nimpali villagers.
“The community centre that Hindalco is planning to construct soon will also take care of the social needs of the people of Nimpali,” said Kerketta.
