Coimbatore Chronicles - A Decade in CSR

Today Shalini owns a tailoring shop which she set up along with two other friends she met at the vocational training centre and another shop of her own in a different part of town. Financially independent, she has married again and is now living happily with her automobile mechanic husband and daughter.

At the vocational training centre stories like Shalini’s aren’t hard to find. There are plenty of other women who much like Shalini have found hope after coming there and forged an identity of their own. There’s Rajlaxmi, a 41 year old woman whose family life was daily struggle as her husband’s income couldn’t meet their needs. Then there’s Vasanthi, 35, who used to work in a printing press and earned a meagre sum after putting in long hours. While Rajlaxmi took to Machine and Aari Embroidery and pulled herself and her family out of the financial rut they were in, Vasanthi, underwent a course in beauty culture and set up her own shop in the city where she is now her own boss and earns well enough to employ three other girls. Successful entrepreneurs, today both the women are the primary breadwinners for their respective families, earning more than their husbands and living life on their own terms.

Set up three years ago in 2013, the Eachanari-based Vocational Training Centre is part of LTPCT’s Uddyam initiative which offers women vocational guidance through courses in tailoring, embroidery, beauty-culture and fashion design by partnering with Avinashilingam Jan Shikshan Sansthan. The courses meant for young girls and women looking to gain skills which may allow them to gain financial independence attract trainees from all parts of Coimbatore city and the surrounding rural areas. Such is the popularity of these courses that some trainees travel as much as 35-40 km to attend the training sessions. Lasting for a period of 3 to 6 months, these courses provide trainees with all the training in trades of their choosing. In addition to basic training the women are given entrepreneurial knowledge and guidance so that they may venture out on their own and set up their own business. Besides, they are also given lifeskills

training and are coached in dealing with the stresses of the daily grind and filial pressures. The focus is as much on personality and emotional development as it is on skill development and the centre lays equal emphasis on both the aspects of the trainees’ development.

The vocational training is just one of the many outreach programmes run from the Coimbatore campus. The sprawling facility spread over 220 acres of land in Malumichampatti houses E&A’s Electrical Systems & Equipment and Switchgear Design & Development Centre, L&T’s Valves’ Manufacturing Unit, a Product Development Centre belonging to Machinery Business, and a highly sophisticated Precision Manufacturing & Systems Complex, all of which come together to give the campus a distinct new age appeal. But despite its modern façade, the campus hasn’t forgotten L&T’s core principles of combining sustainable growth with social welfare and community development.

Ever since the first foundation stone for the campus was laid back in 2007, a slew of initiative have been run out of the Coimbatore campus with a clear focus on community healthcare, children’s education, skill-development and watershed development in the rural areas surrounding the premise. These initiatives, some backed under Company’s CSR agenda, some powered by LTPCT and some by other business units complement each other nicely to cover much ground for the betterment of the local communities.

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