RIL CSR INITIATIVE

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani- run Reliance Foundation has undertaken a CSR initiative on rural transformation, which covers 24 of the poorest pockets across 10 states, engaging 20,000 farming households.Reliance Foundation chairperson Nita Ambani made this announcement here. The programme started two years ago."Rural transformation can be achieved through self sustained agriculture, and that will help bridge the divide between rural and urban India," she said, talking to media during her visit to Selarpur village in Mangrol tehsil of Surat district.Selapur is a part of the Netrang Cluster, one of the 24 clusters across 24 agro-ecological zones in ten states where Foundation is implementing its `Bharat India Jodo' (BIJ) initiative."Urban India is growing with such a fast pace and 70 per cent of India is living in rural India. Our concern is how that India can be brought into the pace of development," she said. For the initial phase, 24 pockets across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were selected.Ambani said, "A modest beginning was made by engaging almost 20,000 farming households across 200-odd villages. Over 15,000 hectares of land owned by the marginal farmers there has already been brought back into productivity". After reaching this tribal village with population of 1,357, Ambani interacted with women. She was offered a ride on a bullock-cart, driven by 70-year old Kumiben Chaudhary."One year ago there was widespread malnutrition here. In their staple diet there was no nutritional food. They were only growing jowar and lentils...today they are growing 62 vegetables in Reliance Nutritional Gardens (RNG) and even supplying it to the local schools for children," Ambani said. The programme also focuses on building institutions owned, controlled and run by the community, and specific interventions like water harvesting, mixed farming, marketing, etc.Under BIJ, local youths were given 55-day training on how to revive the local water resources. "Though last year we received only 600 mm of rain against the average 1000 mm, we succeeded in taking two crops," said 27-year old Jasubhai Chaudhary."The whole thing is about making them agro-sustainable," Ambani said, when asked about future plans of the BIJ.