Jamshedpur, March 07, 2005
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.
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