The Chairman Emeritus of Tata Group, Ratan Tata, said that malnutrition in children and mothers has been long ignored and it deserves to be prioritised.
He was speaking at an interactive session organised by Indian Impact, a Wharton Business School alumni promoted NGO that focuses on reducing malnutrition in children.
“We are a young country and we are talking about taking dividend of youth. Unless we strengthen the youth, we cannot have a healthy future. We all should take the responsibility,” Mr. Ratan Tata said.
He, however, cautioned that only a certain percentage of the benefits from the government were reaching the end beneficiaries, which he called ‘criminal’. The society at large should stop such slippage, he said.
CSR policy
“Tata Group is spending 4 per cent of its net profit on activities related to Corporate Social Responsibility,” Mr. Ratan Tata added.
The online infrastructure created by Indian Impact enables individuals and corporates to identify anganwadis in the neighbourhood, list out their needs and reach out to them. The number of children suffering from malnutrition in the country is over 42 per cent of the population and the objective of the NGO is to reduce the number substantially according to its president, P. Ridhima.
Speaking on the occasion, G.M. Rao, the founder chairman of GMR Group, said that the NGO should exercise caution while dealing with anganwadi centres as there is a lot of political influence around the system.
“Our foundation works in different States as part of social work and we did face some problems due to some political influence,” Mr. G.M. Rao said.
