Using Corporate Social Responsibility as A Tool to Reduce the Menace of Open Defecation and Improve Standards of Sanitation in the Villages of Mehsana, Gujarat

Abstract

All Corporates as per under Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013 and Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules 2014 have to spend a part of their profits in the areas designated by the Act. Eradicating hunger, poverty & malnutrition, promoting preventive health care & sanitation & making available safe drinking water is one such important focus area. ONGC Mehsana took up project for construction of individual household toilets in fifteen villages thereby leading to improvement insanitation and living conditions of these villages.
The main aim of this paper is to study in detail the impact caused on the improvement in the sanitation index of these villages and the reduction in the waste generation thereby leading to open defecation free villages in the state of Gujarat. ONGC took up this project into consideration under CSR and after conducting a need identification study and necessary infrastructure was brought into place. The major issues discussed in the paper are the improvement in the sanitation index techniques and changes brought about due to the conJISEM struction of the household toilets. Multiple-choice questionnaire was circulated among the beneficiaries to document the process and record the changes. Relevant information was referred from primary sources published by ONGC Limited. It has been found that the construction of these household individual toilets has led to improvement in the sanitation of the villages leading to improved living conditions in the villages.