The city of Jamshedpur, developed and managed by Tata Steel, has been chosen as the first South Asian city to join the select band of six cities in the world for the United Nations Global Compact Cities Pilot programme. This is a rare honour for a city being managed by a Steel Company. Tata Steel is proud, especially as it comes in the year when they are commemorating the death centenary of its Founder, J.N.Tata and celebrating the birth centeneraries of Bharat Ratna JRD Tata and Naval Tata. Jamshedpur has been selected after weighing other options in India to join the select group. The other five cities are Melbourne (Australia), Porto Algegre (Brazil), Tianjin (PRC), Nairobi (Kenya) and Sans Francisco (USA). Under the programme each of the these six cities will be required to join hands with the ‘neutral’ agency and conduct a project of benefit to their city using the Melbourne Model project coordination and facilitation methodology, which was launched in December 2003 at Brazil by Mr.George Kell, Executive Director of the Global Compact.

The objective of each project will be to develop innovative solutions to address some intractable social, economic and environmental issues in the urban context through working partnerships between the government, business and civil society.

The Global Compact Cities Pilot Programme has two main objectives: to mainstream nine principles of Global Compact now ten, with the addition of ‘Combating Corruption in all its form’ and to handle pressing urban problems like shortage of potable water, crumbling infrastructure, shortage of food and housing, detoriating health services etc. The Ten Principles of Global Compact widely covers the issues related to Human Right, Labour Standards and the Environment.

The programme will run from 2004 to 2006 and will be coordinated by a “Committee for Jamshedpur” with Mr.Arun Narayan Singh, Dy.Managing Director (Corporate Services) as the process owner and Mr.Sanjiv Paul, Managing Director of newly formed subsidiary of Tata Steel, JUSCO, as the Convenor.

Each city will determine the nature and scope of its own project and will have to communicate its results to the International Secretariat coordinated by Mr.David Teller at Melbourne. UNGC Cities Pilot Programme Secretariat will coordinate and facilitate the Pilot and will monitor the development of each city-based project. Once the pilot programme is completed, the UN Global Compact Office in New York will determine the viability of the Cities Programme as an effective and ongoing means to engage and promote the Global Compact in an urban setting.

Mr.Singh who looks after the Corporate Social Responsibility of the company says “Tata Steel Corporate Social Responsibility is not only a commitment, but also one of its core business processes. Even United Nations hailed the contribution of the Company in the field of CSR at a summit of Global Compact Leaders Forum held in the last week of June at New York. Tata Steel was the only private Indian company to have been invited to this form”. The Forum Comprises organizations committed to translating the UN decreed principles of human rights, labour and environment into practice. The Company is also a member of the Global Reporting Initiative.

With Melbourne Methodology, Mr.Singh is confident to develop practical solutions to urban issues in the city and share the city’s best practices with the world facing similar problems. The city is waiting the clearance from the State Government, which is mandatory before launching of the project. The government also needs to give its consent for participation in the project, as this is a partnership among the local government, civil society and business corporations.

The new Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives undertaken this year worth highlighting according to Mr.Singh, have been the recommendation by the Audit Committee for accreditation to the Social Accountability 8000 certification, setting up of a Technical Education Centre for job oriented training and formation of Jamshedpur Utility Services Company (JUSCO) to have its core activity of providing quality civic services to improve the quality of life of our employees and the citizens of Jamshedpur.

Like other initiative in the Company, Mr. Arun Narayan Singh further add, “our commitment towards Corporate Social Responsibility is management leadership driven and in the coming years, we are committed to bring more professionalism with greater participation and involvement of other industries as well as our own employees at all levels to retain our organisation’s benchmark status as Corporate Citizen”.

With the adoption of Melbourne Model, a new methodology, the city of Jamshedpur will be able to produce practical solutions to contemporary problems related to globalisation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility in a multi-stakeholder context. It will enable the city to leverage the UN’s global reach and in sharing good practices and learnings.

The Company CSR Initiatives which is considered to be a benchmark has invited the attention of M/s Alcan’s Steel Plant in Germany and Switzerland and recently one company expert on CSR visited them for benchmarking session on CSR and to enable them to formulate a guideline for social responsibility programme in the European context based on the Tata Steel CSR initiatives which broadly aims at empowerment, stimulating economic growth, health for all, excellence through education, environment management, community services, rural and tribal welfare, disaster relief etc.

The selection of city of Jamshedpur spread over 64 Sq.Km. and developed and managed by Tata Steel truly represents the company approach of ‘Putting Principles into Practice’. The city has also decided to host the regional conference of Global Compact Forum at Jamshedpur where many member countries would participate.