Tata Steel honoured at National CSR Awards for its work on maternal and child health

~ Tata Steel’s Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI) receives ‘Honourable Mention’ in Corporate Awards for Excellence in CSR ~

New Delhi/Jamshedpur, October 29, 2019: Tata Steel’s flagship health programme Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI) has been recognised with the ‘Honourable Mention’ at the National CSR Awards ceremony held today in New Delhi. His Excellency, the President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind and Hon’ble Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman graced the occasion.

Hon’ble Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Shri Anurag Singh Thakur conferred the National CSR Awards to the Honourable Mentions. On behalf of Tata Steel, the honour was received by Mr T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD, Tata Steel along with Mr Chanakya Chaudhary, Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel and Mr Sourav Roy, Chief, CSR, Tata Steel.

Tata Steel was selected to receive ‘Honourable Mention’ in the National CSR Awards 2018 in the category – Corporate Award for Excellence in CSR, sub-category: Companies have eligible CSR spend equal and above Rs. 100 crores.

“MANSI reflects Tata Steel’s ethos of ensuring the well-being of communities in its areas of influence. In the last one decade that the programme is operational, it has emerged as a remarkable example of collaboration, cross-team learning, of empowering our community ladies and most importantly, of the trust that the communities have reposed in us,” said Mr Narendran, on the occasion.

MANSI engages in enhancing the capacity of the village-based healthcare system (embedded in villages through government health volunteers called ASHAs or Sahiyas in Jharkhand) by training them on parameters which would address the root causes and underlying reasons for neonate and infant mortality. Through this, the programme intends to reduce neonatal (newborn of 0-28 days) and infant (child up to 1 year of age) mortality in 10 blocks of Jharkhand and 2 blocks of Odisha (nearly 2.2 lakh households).

“We are humbled to have been recognised by the Government of India for our effort on MANSI. This encourages us and fuels our ambition to continue engaging with the communities to improve the quality of life,” said Mr Chaudhary.

The National CSR Awards (NCSRA) has been instituted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to recognise corporate initiatives in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to achieve inclusive growth and sustainable development. These awards are the highest recognition in the domain of CSR by the Government of India.

This year, a total of 528 entries were received for NCSRA. After shortlisting as per the prescribed criteria of the jury, 131 companies were invited for detailed submissions which were then followed by field verification of the claims made by the companies. Based on the submissions by the companies and reports of the independent assessment by CSR experts, Jury recommended 19 winners and 19 honourable mentions across the three award categories.