The Hindu : National : BITS alumni, corporates to tsunami victims' aid

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 26, 2006

National

National

BITS alumni, corporates to tsunami victims' aid

A. Shankar

They are taking rehabilitation beyond ad hoc relief

CHENNAI: It is an example of how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives channelled through pro bono efforts of the alumni of a university could holistically transform village communities and evolve a replicable model of rural transformation.

BITSunami, a unique multi-crore rupee effort initiated by the alumni of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, along with a number of socially responsible corporates — TTK-LIG, Wipro, WeP Peripherals, Covansys, Hewlett-Packard, Allsec, Kanbay, Sugal and Damani, RedHat, I-Soft and others — has completed the first year of a five-year rehabilitation initiative. Taking rehabilitation well beyond ad hoc relief activities in Pushpavanam and Naluvedapathy — two tsunami-affected villages in the Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu — the initiative has stuck to the schedule in the first year.

A few days after the disastrous tsunami of December 26, 2004, Sudeep Jain, IAS, an alumnus of BITS and former Collector of Nagapattinam, appealed to the BITS Alumni Association's Chennai chapter to participate in the rehabilitation effort rather than merely donate for ad hoc relief efforts. This led to a two-day visit by half-a-dozen alumni to the two villages. A project report prepared by the core alumni team sought to address the rural-urban divide with a multi-disciplinary approach.

The two villages are about an hour away by road from Nagapattinam. Naluvedapathy has a population of 3,000. Pushpavanam has around 1,200 households with a population of about 6,000. The tsunami brought seawater 800 to 1000 metres beyond the coastline, killing 24 persons and washing away 200 houses. The commitment of BITSunami, along with the partner corporates, includes providing coastal defence mechanisms, constructing houses, rebuilding schools, reclaiming agricultural land, supplying boats and nets, building a disaster relief-cum-community shelter, establishing self-help groups and building a network of IT-enabled village knowledge centres.

Institutional impetus

BITS Vice-Chancellor S. Venkateswaran's advice was to go in for integrated transformation of the two villages. Last year, the students conducted surveys and did a GIS (Geographical Information System) based resource mapping for the villages, designed sanitation and water resource plans and studied benchmarks for monitoring development. Final year and second year students of BITS are taking an active part in the initiative.

CSR in full flow

TTK-LIG is building at Naluvedapathy a calamity relief shelter-cum-community centre equipped with communication and public address and warning systems at a cost of Rs. 40 lakh. Cattle can be kept safely at the ground level of this shelter.Wipro Cares, an initiative of Wipro, enabled the reclamation of 100 acres of agricultural land, which was rendered useless by seawater ingress. To provide a seawall to minimise damage from flooding during cyclones and any more tsunamis, a joint corporate-community initiative was launched on October 1 and 2, 2005. The BITSunami Trust, Wiproites and the district administration of Nagapattinam joined the people of Pushpavanam in planting over 2.54 lakh saplings along a two-km coastline in 24 hours.WeP Peripheral's support emphasised on the development of a model community. It positioned an employee in Naluvedapathy to assess the needs of the victims. It facilitated the desalination of 30 ponds. Toilets were provided in five schools. This step is aimed at checking the dropout rate of girl students. Three houses are being built in Naluvedapathy at a total cost of Rs. 5 lakh by Sugal and Damani.

The Trust marked one year of its existence with a function in Naluvedapathy in February when District Collector J. Radhakrishnan handed over three school buildings, launched a computer centre and distributed science kits to all the schools.

Contact address: K. Srikanth, Trustee, BITSunami, SP 82, Industrial Estate, Ambattur, Chennai 600058. email: bitsaach@yahoo.com

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