Bharat Petroleum | Energising Society | Sharing Wider Responsibility

Your are here | Home : Energising Society : Sharing Wider Responsibility

Sharing Wider Responsibility

Care for Generation Next

Care For Next Generation

At BPCL we believe that it’s equally important to return back to society. Which is why, we believe some of our finest achievements aren’t those found in our balance sheets but those, in small towns and villages spread across India. Our involvement in sharing this wider responsibility dates way back to 1984, when in pursuance with our philosophy “to give back to the society/community our best”, we aimed to help the people enrich their lives, be it our employees or their families also extending the scope of definition of families to those that we saw beyond our glass cabins in these rustic surroundings, and thus started our romance. Today, we term them as our extended family i.e. our villagers from rural areas.

India, has a social contrast, while one strata of the society comprising of approximately 30% live in the cities, a great percentage of nearly double -700 million Indians reside in villages, which we term as rural India. Now rural India too has its own disparity, some are what we call the islands of prosperity and the rest that have the other extremes, riddled by droughts and some difficult conditions of weather and climate and sometimes these villages are so remote and far flung from cities that many a times makes others go past unnoticed

BPCL initially started working in Mahul, the village located in our neighborhood of its Mumbai refinery since 1986, for the sole reason of their upliftment. The habitants of Mahul, essentially from the fishing community, were rich because they possessed marine wealth but as far as education, health, etc was concerned, they needed help. BPCL volunteered and the initial success brought such gratification that immediately it adopted another village (this time an interior one) called Karjat, developments with selfless intentions helped introspect about the future role BPCL should adopt in its aim to contribute to this effort, then there after there was no looking back

As a corporate responsibility, today 37 villages across India have been adopted. This includes making substantial investments for nearly a decade and a half in them to make them fully self reliant, providing them fresh drinking water, sanitation facilities, medical facilities, enhancing their income standards by imparting vocational training and agricultural innovations. However, BPCL also firmly believes that the only vehicle for raising the villagers from their present state is by educating both the young and the old, a focus on providing grants for opening schools and opening adult literacy camps as well.

A Herculean task indeed, which BPCL recognized and thus even sought assistance from NGO’s working around these centers in fulfilling its dream, which to many of BPCL employee’s still remains incomplete, on account of the large magnitude of work necessary in completion.

Listed below is a case study on our village adoption at Karjat

Arming Them Towards Self Sufficiency
The rationale behind selecting Karjat for community development initiatives was that the company wanted to work for vulnerable groups.. The Karjat endeavour began with construction of a community hall, which was like a meeting place for villagers and way of reaching out to village women. Later many programs like medical assistance, grain bank, marketing artifacts, conducting certified vocational training courses, etc were carried out. From last 10 years farmers in 21 villages of karjat are helped through our interventions. There are eight villages, which are covered through BPCL’s projects in and around Washala. Washala is situated in Shahpur taluka in Thane district. It is made up of tribal population. The various on-going activities are:
- Farm facts
  For agricultural upliftment, we arrange training through Pune Agricultural University, distribute seeds and fertilizers every year. There are lectures arranged on technical guidance, use of less water for farming, teaching newer methods of agriculture, etc. They also educate the farmers about fish farming and provide them all necessary information. Guidance is also given as regards buying of seeds. The methods of multiple cropping are taught. Every year farmers are given free fertilizers. Bamboo cultivation is also promoted. 5000 Bamboo saplings are planted every year, by giving it to villagers who will take care of it. Along with it, even mango, chikku and guava saplings are provided.
- Cattle care
  At Karjat, We conduct exhibitions of cattle of various breeds, training sessions are arranged for improving the health of available cattle, there is vaccine program conducted on regular basis for all pet animals. Competitions are also held among cattle and prizes are given to the best cattle. Once a year there is a camp organized in which doctors from veterinary inspect all the cattle.
- Education
  For motivating intelligent students coaching is provided to students. Balwadis is available for small children as pre-school intervention.. Tree plantation programs are held at Adivasi ashram schools.
- Health A dispensary with a doctor is available and regular health camps are conducted. General health camps are organized twice a year. To cater to the needs of all villagers, may it be men, women, senior citizens, children and so on. To ensure proper eyesight, eye camps are conducted periodically. their sight back through this endeavor. There are camps held for pregnant women regarding guidance in pregnancy, stress on nutrition, etc.
- Grain Bank
  In the villages of Karjat, Institute Of Rural Farmers were dependent on moneylenders for money as well as seeds and grains and thus in turn fell in the debt trap. The moneylenders would harass them and exploit them. For e.g. for every one quintal of grain borrowed, the farmer would have to return it three quintals. To avoid such exploitation, IRCED came out with the grain bank scheme. The concept of grain bank was to make grains easily accessible to the farmers and to keep them away from the clutches of the moneylenders. Grains are made available to the farmers without any advance and they also do not have to return anything extra than what they had taken. Through BPCL, there is also a small room allocated for the purpose of maintaining the grain bank in every village so that the grains do not get spoilt.
- Community centre
  We have provided a multipurpose Samaj Mandir at Pinglas Karjat for the Villagers to have a meeting point. There is a community centre which encompasses classes for villagers on tailoring, mehendi, beautician course, bamboo article making, multi-skill training, etc. Cane Weaving and Bamboo making classes are conducted regularly. Tailoring is helping the girls in income generation. Later there is also an exhibition held in Mumbai for sale of the bamboo articles made in these villages.
- Rain water harvesting
  To make available water in case of scarcity, there was a need felt to start a project on rain water harvesting. The work has just begun. As this is a hilly area the problem of ground water and land water still remains. For provision of water, tube wells and small dams are made for the villagers.
- Infrastructure development
  We have constructed shed for schools. For e.g. repairing the fans, replacing broken furniture, etc jetty for fishermen so that they can rest in the night when they are not fishing. We have also constructed a public toilet. We are vigilant in keeping the surroundings clean. Timely garbage disposal is also taken care of. Tree plantation programs are carried out on a regular basis.
- Every village: Sakhi Shejarni
  A group of women came together in Karjat who felt the need of being together and saving some amount of money. They started meeting regularly and since then they collect savings and deposit in the bank This is a scheme whereby every village will have one woman leader. This leader is trained in such a way that she is able to manage the whole group of other women, take training sessions for them, conducts awareness programs and also provides counseling help. Such women leaders are termed as SAKHI, which means a friend in Marathi.
  Thus the groups serve a double purpose, that of starting a small-scale business and that of learning through various sessions. These meetings help them to improve their quality of life.