The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
BHUBANESWAR, MARCH 27, 2021
At a time when healthcare is on the top of the government’s policy checklist, the PPP (Public-Private-Partnership) mode has taken on an altogether new dimension in Hirakud of Sambalpur District. Hindalco, the flagship of the Aditya Birla Group, in partnership with the Govt Hirakud Hospital Sambalpur has taken a number of immunisation initiatives to ensure better and more meaningful lives for locals. Till date, this joint initiative has benefited over 14,000 people of 12 villages adjacent to Hirakud.
Besides, this partnership with the Hirakud Hospital has been very successful for conducting family planning operation camps and cataract surgeries for senior citizens in Hirakud and adjoining areas of Sambalpur district. The programme thus far has seen close to 150 vision care camps and over 300 health camps at the Hirakud Hospital in the last 3 years. At health camps, couples are counseled by experts on planning family. Besides, they are given proper guidance to look at their children not merely as bundles of joy, but to ensure their health and education.
The joint initiative of immunization drive has benefited each and every child of the area. Every Friday, babies are administered vaccines in the immunisation cell attached to Hindalco’s Community Health Centre (CHC). The basic idea behind all this is simple – a healthy baby is a precursor to a healthy society. And Hindalco swears by this truism.
A case in point is Puspa Bag, the mother to a 9-month-old baby girl, from Silipathar in Hirakud. She doesn’t have visit the nearest health centre for her daughter’s vaccination. Rather, healthcare comes to her doorstep, and the whole process is done from the comfort of her home.
Speaking on the initiative, Dr. Manoj Nanda, Medical Officer, Government Hospital, Hirakud, said: “I acknowledge Hindalco’s gesture of providing conveyance facilities for the immunisation team. This has enabled them to provide services to the poorest in interior parts and slums smoothly”
“Earlier, the team found it very hard to reach the rural centres as there was no organised transport facility to these places and they used to wait for long to get there and return from those centres. But things have become smooth now after the intervention of Hindalco,” added Dr. Nanda.
In a sense, the programme has proved to be a boon for local villagers.
“As people in and around our area of operations are either farm workers or daily wage labourers, they face difficulty in getting their babies vaccinated because of conveyance issues as well as the fear of loss of wage. Concerned about this, we in association with the government hospital have made arrangements for taking the immunisation staff, along with medicines, to 12 different villages and slums every Wednesday for administering vaccines to the babies,” said Rajesh Gupta, Head of Hindalco Hirakud Cluster.
“We cover more than 250 left out babies every month through mobile immunisation programmes,” he added.
As a responsible corporate citizen and driven by the constant motivation to give back to society, the Aditya Birla Group in Odisha reaches out to more than 5 lakh people touching more than 2 lakh people’s lives in 128 villages of five districts. The Group’s CSR programmes are being driven by Rajashree Birla, Chairperson, Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development whose vision is to actively contribute to the social and economic development of the communities in which the company operates.
