The Nalco has been recognised with ‘Honourable Mention’ for excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for its flagship CSR project ‘Nalco Ki Ladli’ at a National CSR Awards ceremony held in New Delhi on Tuesday.

President Ram Nath Kovind and Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman graced the occasion.

Nalco Director (HR) Basant Kumar Thakur received the award from Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Singh Thakur.

Congratulating the Nalco collective on the achievement, Nalco CMD Dr Tapan Kumar Chand said, “The journey for the Ladlis of Nalco began in 2015. Today, we have been recognised by the Government of India for putting our heart and soul into implementing the ‘Nalco Ki Ladli’ CSR initiative, which is empowering the girl child in villages and becoming a powerful trigger for women empowerment.”

Inspired by the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ initiative of the Union Government, the Nalco Ki Ladli programme provides adoption of poor girl students to enable them to study and settle in life. Till now, the Nalco has adopted 416 poor girl students from 66 villages in 45 schools in Angul and Damanjodi. NALCO plans to scale up the scheme at a pan-India level covering poor girl children of Odisha, aspiration districts of the country and its peripheral villages.

With a view to augmenting the scheme, the Nalco has also launched an Employee Social Responsibility (ESR) programme, which offers employees a satisfying way to meaningfully contribute towards social causes.