Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility (SD-CSR)

Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR)

CSR is a tool that invokes the participation of corporate citizens for addressing larger societal issues such as poverty, hunger and social justice.  It synergizes efforts of corporate and social sector agencies towards sustainable growth and development of social objectives at large.

Vision:
Vision statement of our founder Sri Ammembal Subba Rao Pai states that, “A good Bank is not only the financial heart of the community, but has also an obligation of helping in every manner to improve the economic conditions of the common people” has been the guiding principle of the Bank’s CSR activities.

Major initiatives of the Bank under CSR have been setting up of Trusts and Institutions which have created an impact in serving the people and society at large. The Bank has set up two trusts.

  • Canara Bank Centenary Rural Development Trust
  • Canara Financial Advisory Trust

Bank continues to actively fund and also involve in the activities of these Trusts under its CSR. 
In addition, Bank has facilitated setting up of below mentioned Trusts as their founder member.

  • Canara Bank Jubilee Education Fund.
  • Canara Bank Relief & Welfare Society.

Bank’s CSR policy is reviewed and updated basing on the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) guidelines on Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability for Central Public Sector enterprises as Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility (SD&CSR) Policy of Canara Bank.  
The new Companies Act 2013 (enacted on 29.08.2013) brought in important provisions giving a direction to the CSR activities in the country, which has necessitated the bank to review and update the policy in line with the expectations of the new Companies Act. The CSR policy is reviewed and updated annually based on the inputs received from implementation of the policy and guidelines received from time to time.   

Mission:
CSR is a strategic business initiative to achieve sustainable triple bottom line growth.  CSR will be an investment in building corporate reputation, employee engagement and efforts of the bank in finding out innovative ways to serve the people.  The main objective is “to create a measurable positive impact on economic, social and environmental success and brand image of our Bank and group, through well designed, directed and sustainable interventions either own or in partnership with other reputed like minded organizations in thematic areas of livelihood, education, health and environment aimed at improving the quality of life of weaker and vulnerable sections of people”.  

Focus & Target Group:                                                    
CSR activities of the Bank focus on the disadvantaged, marginalized and excluded. Accordingly, following weaker and vulnerable sections of the people will be the broad focus of all our CSR activities.

  • Small and marginal farmers ,Artisans
  • Women and girl children, Unemployed youth and school drop outs
  • Differently abled people, Scheduled Caste/Tribes
  • Minority Community, Prisoners and ex-convicts
  • Victims of heinous crimes, Victims of natural and manmade calamities

Roles & responsibilities
a) Activities:

  • Eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting preventive health care & sanitation under Swatch Bharat activities and making available safe drinking water.
  • Promoting education, including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills especially among children, women, elderly and the differently abled and livelihood enhancement projects;
  • Promoting gender equality, empowering women, setting up homes and hostels for women and orphans, setting up old age homes, day care centres and such other facilities for senior citizens and measures for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups;
  • Ensuring environmental sustainability, ecological balance, protection of flora and fauna, animal welfare, agro forestry, conservation of natural resources and maintaining quality of soil, air and water.
  • Protection of national heritage, art and culture including restoration of buildings and sites of historical importance and works of art, setting up public libraries, promotion and development of traditional arts and handicrafts.
  • Measures for the benefit of armed forces veterans, war widows and their dependents.
  • Training to promote rural sports, nationally recognized sports, Paralympics sports and Olympic sports.
  • Contributions or funds provided to technology incubators located within academic institutions which are approved by the Central Government.
  • Rural development projects.
  • Major activities
  • The Bank, through its Canara Bank Centenary Rural Development Trust (CBCRDT), has established 46 exclusive training institutes, including 38 Rural Self Employment Training Institutes, 3 Artisan Training Institutes and 5 Institutes of Information Technology to promote entrepreneurship development among rural youth and encourage them to take up self-employment activities. The Bank has co-sponsored 27 Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institutes (RUDSETIs) across 17 States, engaged in training of rural youth for taking up self-employment programmes. The Bank has co-sponsored Bankers Institute of Rural and Entrepreneurship Development with Government of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad and has also Co-sponsored Canara Bank Deshpande Rural Self Employment Training Institute at Haliyal, a backward region of North Karnataka district. The Bank has supported in setting up of Karnataka Farmers Resource Centre at Bagalkot.
  • Canara Vidyajyothi - Scheme specially formulated to provide scholarship to meritorious Girl students from SC/ST categories and introduced as homage to Dr. B R Ambedkar. The objective of the scheme is to encourage education among girl children from socially and economically backward communities, where school dropout was high. The scheme is implemented through, each Rural, Semi urban and Urban branches of Canara Bank.

Geographic Areas :  Canara Bank with PAN INDIA presence, CSR activities can be taken up anywhere in the country, Service Area/command area of our branches, economically backward Districts (identified by the Planning Commission for Backward Regions Grant Fund), Districts with concentration of minorities, Scheduled Castes and Tribes and other vulnerable sectors.

Strategies for meeting objectives
Bank will also partner with like minded reputed organizations like Government and non-Government organizations, voluntary agencies, civil society organizations, social entrepreneurs, companies, community based organizations, trusts/missions, self help groups, institutes/academic organizations. In case of such partnerships, bank will document a mutual expectations and impact matrix in the form of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

There shall be an annual review of the activities of our own Trusts and partnerships as well as the entire CSR portfolio to derive lessons and decide on course corrections during implementation.

Bank will also follow an approach of documenting the impact created under its CSR activities which may include a system of third party assessment and evaluation.

Bank will try to engage the employees in the CSR activities and to the extent possible provide managerial and administrative support in the form of deputation of staff, nominating staff as ex-officio members of the Committee/Trusts, etc. and arrange for training to staff members to carry out CSR activities.   Banks may also provide opportunities to employees to participate in the CSR activities on a voluntary basis and initiate necessary awards/recognitions to motivate the employees for such participation.

Bank at its sole discretion, may allow its and/or jointly sponsored centers to accept grants, subsidies, donations, aids in any form of assets that will assist the centers to carry out the defined objectives.


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