HCL Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of HCL Tech, on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the State government for implementing its flagship rural development programme, HCL Samuday, in 95 village panchayats.
The 95 villages have been chosen from Pudur and Vilathikulam taluks of Thoothukudi district. According to a release by the government, the programme will reach 1,40,000 beneficiaries and will help them earn better income by focussing on water management, agriculture, health, education and nutrition management.
Under the HCL Samuday initiative, the release said that 42,000 households were surveyed in Thoothukudi district to understand the initiatives needed in each village panchayat. These initiatives were collated as village development plans and some of them were identified for implementation in the initial phase so as to improve the participation of the communities.
According to the release, some of the achievements of the initiative in Thoothukudi district so far included the installation of smart boards in 132 primary schools, development of 20 anganwadi centres to enable them for digital learning, enhanced screening and management for non-communicable diseases in 58 village panchayats, and training imparted to 100 women from self-help group on tailoring.
The MoU was signed by P. Amudha, Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, and Alok Varma, planning director, HCL Foundation, in the presence of Udhayanidhi Stalin, Minister for Youth Welfare, Sports Development, Special Programme Implementation Department, Poverty Alleviation Programme and Rural Indebtedness, and other senior officials.
