CSR Practices at NALCO

Business may be understood as the organized efforts of enterprises to supply consumers with goods and services. Business depends on society for existence, sustenance and encouragement and has definite responsibility towards society, which is popularly known as social responsibility of business or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A good number of research publications, opinions and views have enriched the field of CSR all over the world with varied approaches. The work of Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer, proposed a new way to view the relationship between business and society that allows a business organization to make valuable contributions to society's welfare without sacrificing corporate success. Extending one type of benefits at one point of time may not be relevant for all time to come. So business organizations always have to redefine their social responsibility without causing any damage to the existing fabric of the society along with the ecological balance. Indian industry for many years has been doing community related work such as running free medical centers, rural development, educational activities and several other areas such as environment protection, population management and AIDS prevention programme etc. In the words of our Dr. Manmohan Singh, (while addressing at the Confederation of Indian Industry's Annual General Body meeting in May 2007) "Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not an imported western notion. It is a part of our cultural heritage."

In this paper an attempt has been made to evaluate the on-going CSR initiatives undertaken by the National Aluminium Company (NALCO) Ltd., at its mining and refinery unit at Damanjodi, Koraput. Although lots of CSR works have been undertaken, yet a lot is also left to be undertaken. It is left to the leadership of the Nalcoas how to take new initiatives for untouched area of CSR keeping in view the goals and objectives of the organization to achieve competitive advantages in an open market and globalized economy.