Kolkata: In a unique initiative, the West Bengal government, corporate partners and UNICEF have joined hands to promote child development and address the most pressing issues impacting children.
In a corporate roundtable titled ‘Matching Grants to Needs’, organised by UNICEF in collaboration with state government on Wednesday evening, members of ASSOCHAM, BCCI, Bharat Chambers, FICCI, MCCI and Eastern Region of CII and officials of state government and UNICEF expressed their desire to invest in children to secure their futures and the environment they live in using expertise of the UN body working for the children, the funds allocated for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the industrial houses and facilitation of the state government.
The state government has a CSR council and launched a ‘CSR Portal’ to help corporates invest their CSR funds into various development projects that the West Bengal government identifies across the state.
“A portfolio of the projects based on the needs of the children, which the corporates can take up to utilise their CSR funds, has been put up in the CSR Portal. This is an attempt to help match the needs of the society with your CSR funds,” said Shashi Panja, minister of Women and Child Development (W &CD) and Social Welfare, as well as Industries, Commerce and Enterprises, told the leaders of the corporate bodies present at the meeting.
The joint work would explore avenues for CSR investments in child health, child nutrition, adolescent and youths, climate resilient systems focusing on communities vulnerable to natural disasters, education, skill development and social protection of marginalised groups of children.
Cynthia McCaffrey, UNICEF Representative in India, said that the dialogue created hopes and ambitions for advancing the well-being of children and families.
State government officials urged the leaders of the industries to get their companies registered with the ‘CSR Portal’. “Projects worth Rs 450 crore have already been put up in the portal, and 37 industrial houses have registered with it.
“The portal offers projects that suit the interests of the corporates,” Sanghamitra Ghosh, Principal Secretary of the W & CD department said.