Maruti Suzuki - Uplifting the communities surrounding its factories

All companies are a part of society where they operate and while they are selling goods to the society, it is very necessary for the companies to also look upon the other impact they have in their working on different parts of society. So Maruti took up the CSR activities with this particular objective. They recognize the fact that our resources are not unlimited. And therefore, they took up limited activities but those activities have the maximum impact.

Maruti Suzuki also decided that to get maximum impact from the implementation, it would be best if they did it themselves.

Even before Maruti Suzuki’s official CSR program started, one of their efforts was always to do whatever they can to improve the living standards of people living in the villages around their factories. It was decided that the people around their factories will be taken up first because they are the people who expect most from the factory and with whom Maruti Suzuki have in a sense, a kind of relationship of being neighbors.

The other objective to keep the activities near to the factories was to implement and monitor the program closely. With these considerations, the company decided to take up the CSR program in ‘Community Development’ in areas around villages located near the company’ factories.

Clean water solves almost 50% of the health problems in rural areas. To facilitate access to clean affordable potable water for community, Maruti installed water ATMs in the villages surrounding its factories. These are actually RO water not just filtered water. Maruti Suzuki has taken up community development efforts in 26 villages of Haryana and Gujarat, focused towards the areas of water and sanitation, education, and community infrastructure. To ensure availability of potable water, the Company set up 21 water ATMs in 20 villages. In addition to this, it has constructed more than 4000 toilets, laid sewer lines, and provided support on waste management.

The area where Suzuki has set up its plant in Gujarat, the Mehsana and Hansalpur area, there were scarce facilities for people in a sense of education, health, entertainment, and so on. It is not only Suzuki’s limited community which is without facilities, it is the entire community which is without facilities. So Maruti Suzuki decided to tackle both these issues in one attempt.

For health, Maruti onboarded Zydus Hospitals. The idea of providing funds from CSR is that the services which will be available from the hospital will then be at much lower cost. Simultaneously, they are setting up a school in association with another leading provider of education so that the whole catchment area of the factory has a modern hospital and a modern school. It supports 50 schools through teacher training and infrastructure development in Haryana and Gujarat.

In Sitapur, Gujarat, the Company is setting up a 100 bed hospital by April 2021 to provide quality medical services to over 3,00,000 people residing in the area. It has also set up a school in Sitapur which, in addition to academics, will focus on personality development of the students.

Maruti Suzuki hired external agencies to evaluate what they are doing, evaluate the impact, evaluate whether the maintenance systems are as they should be and on the basis of that see what further improvements they can make in their CSR programs.

Over the years, where these programs have been implemented, it is visible that those villages have a different look about them. The people there are now willing to say that having Maruti in their neighbourhood is a big blessing for them.