A Good Way to Energise Lives

At BPCL, Corporate Social Responsibility has long since been ingrained in its DNA and the company has made significant progress over the years in core areas of Education, Water Conservation, Skill Development, Health & Hygiene and Community Development. Through its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, Bharat Petroleum has impacted communities in the neighbourhood of its businesses across the country, in metros as well as rural and tribal areas to build a sustainable partnership with society.

BPCL had started the project Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) in 2009-10 with 11 zila parishad schools in Uran, Maharashtra. Since then it has scaled up to over 100 schools in Mumbai, Uran, Panvel (Maharashtra) and Lucknow (UP). Subsequently, it has scaled up the project to include 45 new centres in Jaipur (Rajasthan), Mumbai and Solapur (Maharashtra) in addition to the earlier ones, thus covering a total of over 38,000 children. The BPCL CSR teams are steadily working towards empowering the School Management Committees as well as local government bodies to take over the project ownership, thus achieving sustainability.

The company’s unique Science Education Programme for children of government schools in collaboration with the NGO ‘Agastya International Foundation’ near Solur, Bangalore (Karnataka) has been extended to government schools near Mumbai Refinery as well, taking experiential science to children through a mobile science lab. This project has made hands-on science education available among under- privileged children and teachers in rural areas. The project in Bangalore consists of a science centre hub, mobile science lab, lab-in-a-box activities and a ‘Young Instructor Leader’ programme. Understanding the need to train teachers for better communication between students and teachers, a teacher-training module too has been initiated in this programme for addressing issues related to teacher absenteeism, rote based and uninspiring education and lack of interaction between teachers and students.

BPCL’s district-wide Project Akshar (Read India) for impacting learning levels of children through learning camps, was supported in 13 blocks for primary students and six blocks for upper primary students, where focus was on comprehension and application based abilities. Since the project showed good results in learning levels, based on a third-party assessment done in 2013-14, the project was scaled up to include schools in Dausa and Jaipur as well thus impacting over 43,000 primary and upper primary school children.

Similarly, a project to improve access to quality education for tribal students in Kaurmunda block of district Sundargarh in Orissa was implemented. 1,127 students from 31 villages have benefitted from this project

The team at BPCL has also successfully completed the second batch of its in-house pilot project ‘Saksham’ for professional development of primary teachers & principals from low-income schools. This programme is aimed at encouraging teachers to use new techniques for teaching, classroom management as well as develop new teaching materials according to the needs of the class. Additionally, employee-volunteers too add value in the classroom by narrating stories with moral values.

In 2013-14, BPCL had taken up a new library project aimed at impacting literacy and reading skills for increasing creative thinking and supplementing learning on the whole. It continued to support 20 identified libraries in Mumbai and Delhi and added a further five in 2014-15 in Mumbai where over 3,700 children have benefitted. In addition, these libraries have a special teachers’ section and can be used by the community around the schools as well.

Our education system often turns out students who are not employable even after completing years of studies. With an objective to empower unemployed youth, women and differently-abled persons near BPCL’s business locations and to also equip them with skills, the company has several NGO partners. Placement-linked vocational training of 1,000 youth is supported by BPCL in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana with the objective of increasing skills of local youth and the economic level of the surrounding community.

Along similar lines, in Kolkata, BPCL trained 80 differently-abled and under-privileged youth from economically backward families in Desktop Publishing. BPCL volunteers also gave these youth sessions on Personality Development to help them get better placement. In various other projects, persons with hearing, visual and physical limitations were given training in skills that would make them employable or enable them to become self employed by starting their own businesses like weaving, wax candle making, massage therapy, etc.

An award-winning programme to conserve water, Project Boond now spans Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. Through community-based organisations like village water committees, the community that is benefitted by the water-structures built or repaired plays an active role in building and maintaining the structure that contributes to their various daily needs. The project also supports sustainable employment through improved agricultural practices, newer crops, innovative methods of irrigation, etc. Unseen benefits include recharge of ground water, drinking water for cattle, decrease in migration and a positive effect on the environment in addition to flood moderation.

BPCL has around 15,000 Retail outlets and LPG Distributors who employ driveway salesmen (DSMs) and LPG Delivery boys – all critical stakeholders in the value chain yet many do not have any protection for themselves or their families against major expenses arising from unforeseen health issues. Since they are largely from low socio-economic strata and cannot afford unexpected medical expenditure BPCL has launched a health insurance scheme through which 8,713 DSMs and delivery boys in 24 states have been given coverage of Rs 1,00,000 for self and their families for one year. This project will be scaled up shortly to include transport crew as well.

With an objective to improve and encourage Institutional care and safe delivery of babies under supervised medical attention BPCL works in HD Kote taluka, Mysore, by supporting reproductive and child healthcare of tribals. Over 60,000 villagers and specifically 8,975 tribals from 56 tribal colonies are benefitting from this project where there has been a steady increase in institutional deliveries, linkage to government healthcare schemes as well as getting enrolled for essential ID documents like Aadhar card and 100% primary immunisation. Awareness of governmental health schemes, including lectures on community topics like nutrition, infant mortality, etc., are being promoted through regular meetings with community members.

Rising to the call of the Prime Minister on 15th August, 2014, that all schools should have separate toilets for girl students, BPCL has taken up construction of toilets in schools under the ‘Swachh Vidyalaya Programme’. The construction/renovation of 1,910 toilets has been completed across seven states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana and West Bengal under this campaign.

For BPCL, and its staff and stakeholders, these are just the beginning of a movement to convert a philosophy into action that benefits people at the grassroot level. In energising lives lies the potential to accelerate their progress and leave behind a legacy of good for others to emulate.

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