Corporate Social Responsibility in Community Development and Sustainability: Rourkela Steel Plant, A Unit of SAIL, India

Asian J Bus Ethics (2018) 7:53–79
DOI 10.1007/s13520-017-0079-5
Corporate social responsibility in community

development and sustainability: Rourkela Steel Plant,
a unit of SAIL, India
Jyotirmayee Acharya 1 & S. N. Patnaik 2
Received: 11 July 2016 / Accepted: 5 May 2017 / Published online: 12 June 2017
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017
Abstract An attempt is made in this article to explore and build knowledge on the
corporate social responsibility (CSR) performances for community development and sus-
tainability in the context of Rourkela Steel Plant of Steel Authority of India in Odisha,
particularly in the wake of Companies Act, section 135, 2013. The paper looks at the
conduct of CSR transitional strategy if any for delivering a range of activities while the
amount of money spent on CSR is a common indicator of performance. The case is based
on content analysis and narrative inquiry. In-depth, open-ended personal interview and focus
group discussion were conducted with project participants, women leaders, youth, commu-
nity stakeholders, NGO partners and officials. Hard data and field information on the impact
of CSR initiatives were organised to validate the proposition. Findings indicate that brand
building and creating far-reaching positive business impact of RSP-SAIL as a responsible
corporate citizen were important outcomes. This paper sets up an analytical framework that
defines transitional strategies at different levels of communities in terms of production,
organisations, governance, institutions and culture of relationships, noting how best to guide
corporate towards sustainable community development through its CSR policy.
Keywords Effective CSR . Community engagement . Sustainability . RSP-SAIL
Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a benchmark objective of large organisa-
tions, industries and multi-national companies as per section 135, Companies Act 2013.
* Jyotirmayee Acharya
ja1@srisriuniversity.edu.in
1
Faculty of Management Studies, Sri Sri University, M-2, Samanta Vihar, Chandrasekharpur, Nalco
Square, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751016, India
2
IED-Rourkela Steel Plant, SAIL, Odisha, India
54 J. Acharya, S. N. Patnaik
2014 witnessed mandatory spending of 2% of their average net profits of the past 3 years
on CSR and execution of a range of activities on the basis of both CSR Act 2013 and
Global sustainability report (Global Reporting Initiative, Business Responsibility report
and CSR report). A number of recent studies found that among other things, an increasing
number of companies are promptly reporting CSR performances (policy, programme,
process and governance) to their publicly disclosed information online and via annual
reports. However, it is not enough. Apparently, there are infinite combinations of activities
and systems that can lead the company to unsustainability but probably a few simple
combinations to achieve sustainable business practices and reduce the environmental
impact of their activities. We also need to look at CSR transitional strategy for designing
system and process to deliver performance while the amount of money spent on CSR is a
common indicator of measurement. Yet, it became imperative to understand in response to
the new stimuli if there is any change in the conduct of CSR performances, i.e. the range
of activities that companies undertake around CSR and sustainability.
The relation between corporate best practices and business performance of the
corporate houses has often been a source of debate among researchers. A wide range
of research talks about large corporate performance mainly being considered a post-
modern practice due to the strong regulatory standards and appeal systems of a
developed economy which are weak in emerging economies of Asia (Chappel and
Moon 2005). Kautilya emphasised ethical practices and principles while conducting
business. In 1991, Carroll’s CSR model coined CSR a multi-layered concept. Carroll’s
four interrelated layered pyramid view of CSR is an analogy that emphasises the
interdependence of four elements—economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic respon-
sibilities—while expecting that the philanthropic responsibility of a business organisa-
tion as good corporate citizens shall remain a top priority. This understanding implies
that corporate house can no longer be judged simply on the basis of its business
performances towards GDP growth. According to Lee and Logsdon (1996), the
connection between strategy and corporate best practices is quite evident. Lee and
Logsdon (1996) suggest that five dimensions of corporate strategy such as centrality,
specificity, proactivity, voluntarism and visibility are critical to the success of CSR
process in terms of value creation.
Indeed, increasing concern over the impact of unlimited corporate expansion and
economic growth led to the emergence of CSR from a multi-stakeholders’ perspective
(Lee and Logsdon 1996) and has offered a new direction to CSR best practices towards
the community development concept. Studies on CSR performance evaluation has
shifted from a single-dimension measure to a multi-dimension that includes various
stakeholder issues (Freeman 1984; Carroll 1991). According to Freeman (1984), the
term stakeholder is assumed to be all those on whom an organisation’s performance and
actions have some influence including its direct or indirect impact on the community.
Lee and Logsdon (1996) argue that a corporate house in the twentieth century can no
longer afford to enrich shareholders with a private/temporary arrangement. Because
corporate policy is to produce wealth at a high cost of societal marginalisation, growth
in public unrest or rapid degradation of natural resources and ecosystems, it is easy to
determine that, from a sustainability perspective, the corporate policy is defective and
should be responsible equally towards its non-financial stakeholders. If, on the other
hand, corporate policy leads to the kind of governance that creates an opportunity for
the stakeholders, communities, ecosystems and social values, one might accomplish
Corporate social responsibility in community development 55
that corporate decision making is on the right track with national aims and is, therefore,
worth emphasising (Majmudar et al. 2015; GRI 2016).
The growing interest to take advent of new economic policies, globalisation, MNC
intervention in Asian bazaar and financial crisis, consumer demand and expectations
towards treaded goods and on the other hand emergence of pressure groups, CSR
section 135, Companies Act 2013, GRI and community agitations towards corporate
behaviour spearheaded in Asian countries including India have transformed the corpo-
rate decision making. As a result, Indian corporate houses and industries have started
changing their viewpoint towards CSR—moving away from—and eventually
discarding—options that, in the short, medium or long term, will begin to undermine
and unravel business performances, intangible profit achieved and reputation damage
(Schwaiger 2004; Heal 2005; Pradhan and Ranjan 2010). As is now well recognised—
and well acknowledged in standard, in order to be socially responsible, a corporate
must not only be economically well organised, but it must also promote social
inclusion, gender equity and justice towards community and earth’s natural resources
and ecosystem (PiC 2004; KPMG 2005). This understanding implies that CSR must
shift focus from capital making to meet the test of all stakeholders—its employees and
customers to national, social and environmental interest—for the best benefit over time.
Conceptual background and hypotheses development
CSR in India
In India, the empirical literature on the nature of corporate-initiated CSR is limited to

case studies of a small number and few best practices. The dominant view of most of
these case studies is that the crucial factors that will determine the success of stake-
holders’ engagement are the structural and strategic relationship between the industry
and among their financial and non-financial stakeholders. Some of the literature
indicates the factors that may explain improvements in performances such as increased
number of activities and spending of 2% of the net profit of the company. Others
indicate a lack of empirical evidence on the outcomes of CSR in India on the types of
strategies that require concurrently to expand business performance or to move their
CSR routes onto community development paths. Yet, there is a lack of in-depth
analysis on CSR as a complex concept, specifically to strategise the interest and scope
of their work that influence corporate performance and sustainability in India.
Table 1 reports that the average performance score of the top 5 public sector
undertaking (PSU) was 1 point less than the private companies. The trend of the top-
ranking private companies in India is evaluated on the basis of four main criteria, i.e.
governance, disclosure, stakeholders and sustainability (Majmudar et al. 2015). It is
found that PSUs are still lag behind in maintaining their stakeholder (with customer and
supplier not with community and employees) relationships.
Table 2 shows a trend analysis of the top 10 ranking companies. The information
indicates that in both the years 2015 and 2014, the Steel Authority of India (SAIL), a
PSU, has made it to the top 5. It ranked 9 in the year 2013. Interestingly, no service
sector companies have made its position to the top 5 on the sustainability criteria while
their contributions to GDP remain the highest. Further, research on CSR of a number of
Table 1 The top 5 public and private companies of the years 2015 and 2014 in India
Rank Top 5 public companies Top 5 private companies
1 GAIL (India) Ltd. Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

2 Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. Tata Power Company Ltd.
3 Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. Tata Steel Ltd.
4 Steel Authority of India (SAIL) Ltd. Larsen & Tubro Ltd.
5 Oil And Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. Tata Chemicals Ltd.
Average score 39.3 40.8
Source: Adopted from Majmudar et al. (2015)
multi-nationals in India that are considered to be the frontrunners in integrating social

aspects is significantly less pronounced than its industrialised counterparts (Chappel
and Moon 2005; Torres et al. 2012). As indicated in Tables 1 and 2, no foreign players
made it to the top 10 list.
Corporate houses and their CSR operations as a new system of governance slowly
began to be examined by different segments of stakeholders since the beginning of
2000. Past research is critical that corporate houses’ concern on CSR practices is
lagging behind in the research, unlike their Western counterparts. As early as 1980s,
Khan and Atkinson (1987) in their study illustrated that research on CSR in India which
is limited to internal audit and appraisal, quantitative studies (Krishna 1992), nature and
features of CSR in India (Sood and Arora 2006), multi-national corporations’ inter-
vention and reporting and the like, is best practice in India without being linked to
community development, gender equity and sustainability. Obstacles to scrutiny and
measurement of CSR activities (Krishna 2002) and its impact on community develop-
ment are found to be short term and the ad-hoc mechanism by the upper decision
makers, lack of consensus on priorities CSR as a key component within the corporate
house and problems related to higher external research consultants (Krishna 2002).
There are enough studies that suggest tokenism and welfare policies, unclear adminis-
tration, complicated tax systems, lack of follow-up actions on monitoring reports, lack
of active engagement of community (Kumar and Chambers 2002), lack of public
regulations regarding corporate best practices (Torres et al. 2012) and dependence on
government infrastructure are not all but a few more deterring factors (CSM 2001;
Kumar 2008; OECD-ILO 2008; Mishra and Suar 2010; Tulder and van der Zwart
2006; Dutta and Durgamohan 2009). We often put away these phenomena as a
corporate paradox. Should we not discover why this happens and what causes these
increases in inequalities, factors of unsustainability?
The objective of this paper is to identify and analyse the conduct of CSR perfor-
mances of the Rourkela Steel Plant of SAIL, a PSU, on the range of local development
activities and sustainability. In response to the new stimuli, the paper looks at CSR
transitional strategy, if any, for delivering a range of activities while the amount of
money spent on CSR as per section 135, Companies Act 2013 is a common indicator of
CSR performance. This study also looks at CSR transitional strategy, if any, to design
an analytical framework towards sustainable community development (CD) through its
CSR policy while the amount of money spent on CSR as per section 135, Companies
Table 2 The trend of top ranking private companies of India evaluated on the basis of four main criteria, i.e.
governance, disclosure, stakeholders and sustainability
Rank Company Rank Company Rank Company Rank Company

2016 2015 2014 2013
1 Tata Steel Ltd. 1 Mahindra & 1 Mahindra & 1 Tata Steel Ltd.
Mahindra Mahindra Ltd.
Ltd.
2 Tata Power 2 Tata Power 2 Tata Power 2 Tata Chemicals
Company Ltd. Company Company Ltd. Ltd.
Ltd.
3 Ultra Tech Cement 3 Tata Steel Ltd. 3 Tata Steel Ltd. 3 Mahindra &
Ltd. Mahindra
Ltd.
4 Mahindra & 4 . Larsen & 4 Larsen & Toubro 4 Maruti Suzuki
Mahindra Ltd. Toubro Ltd. Ltd. India Ltd.
5 Tata Motors Ltd. 5 Tata Chemicals 5 Tata Chemicals 5 Tata Motors
Ltd. Ltd. Ltd.
6 Tata Chemicals 6 Tata Motors 6 Tata Motors Ltd. 6 Siemens Ltd.
Ltd. Ltd.
7 ITC Ltd. 7 GAIL (India) 7 GAIL (India) Ltd. 7 Larsen &
Ltd. Toubro Ltd.
8 Shree Cements Ltd. 8 Bharat 8 Bharat Petroleum 8 Coca-Cola
Petroleum Corporation Ltd. India Pvt.
Ltd.
9 Bharat Petroleum 9 Infosys Ltd. 9 Infosys Ltd. 9 Steel Authority
Corporation Ltd. of India Ltd.
10 Larsen & Toubro 10 Jubilant Life 10 Jubilant Life 10 Infosys Ltd.
Ltd. Sciences Sciences Ltd.
Source: Adopted from Majmudar et al. (2015)
Act 2013 is a common indicator of performance. The study then proposes a compre-
hensive research framework as a first step to building a body of knowledge on CSR
performances of PSU at the remote village level.
The current paper is the outcome of the partnership between two researchers.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. ‘Conceptual background and
hypotheses development’ presents a detailed literature review. Description of the
study area, data collection and methods are presented in ‘Description of the study
area, data collection, and methods’. ‘Result and discussions’ looks at the result of
the content analysis and analysis of the research participants’ discussion and their
association with assumption. ‘Case of Chutiatola (hamlet) Kuarmunda Block’,
‘Case of Ushra resettlement colony of Kuarmunda Block’ and ‘Case of Laing
resettlement colony of Rajgangpur Block’ presents and discusses the case studies.
In ‘Conclusion and implication for sustainability’, strategies for CSR performance
that flows from the analytical framework are described in an effort to help frame
the recommendation that comes out of the narrative analysis and help policy-
makers to consider how best to guide CSR initiatives towards a sustainable social
responsibility through its CSR policy.
CSR from a community development research perspective
In India, the main focus being on giving back to society over and above the ordinary
course of business looks at CSR as a philanthropic community-centred approach. A
recent study on CSR initiatives of 35 top Indian companies from seven sectors
(Banking, IT, FMCG, Pharmaceutical, Telecom, Automobile and Power) found that
in India, the CSR activities on the CD are found to be dominant in all the sectors except
telecom (Mohapatra et al. 2016). In an average, the CSR undertaking CD activities is
62% followed by environmental activities 26% and stakeholder welfare 12%. A large
number of companies reported on how engaging community in various CSR activities
has become an extensive business strategy and the firms being able to build goodwill in
the society at large (Majmudar et al. 2015).
Different authors have examined the determinants of CSR performances that in
several ways depend on their corporate policies. This paper highlights that while the
intent of many of the business house initiative through CSR whether in socially
responsible corporate behaviour, corruption, promoting social conditions, preserving
or creating livelihoods, improving respect for human rights, sustainability and advanc-
ing social justice (Global Report 2016) has been noble, companies should really focus
on planning their CSR transitional strategies for community-corporate interface from a
sustainable social responsibility perspective. Although the present paper does not
pretend to offer an inclusive reply to all these issues, this study identifies a range of
CSR activities intending to engage communities and environment as two key primary
stakeholders.
A set of literature illustrated that corporate houses have had stronger ties with
the NGOs that would lead them to locally accepted reputation, increased employee
motivation (British Council et al. 2002; Mishra and Suar 2010; Epstein and Roy
2001) and the like, monitoring community engagement. Business organisations
that have been on ‘thin ice’ have turned into frontrunners as far as CSR intervention
towards CD is concerned (Tulder and van der Zwart 2006). However, while
CSR on financial performances is largely researched, its intangible impact lacks
extensive research (Pradhan and Ranjan 2010) resulting in a lack of reflexivity
and subjective measures of perception and experience of respondents which are
complementing in nature.
H1: CSR project interventions towards community development and innovation

will positively impact SAIL-RSP’s business performances and sustainability.
CSR from collective action perspective
There is a growing acceptance of the fact that research must now seriously identify and
analyse how the optimum associations between community partners, corporate leaders
and public partners are important (Acharya and Das 2015)—a point at which the
benefits of corporate performance are maximised, while the interests of partnership
for innovations are realised (Ashoka 2005; Nelson and Jenkins 2006). There is research
evidence that CSR undertaking of community capacity building programme may
leverage social entrepreneurship, income generation and collaboration (Mort and
Hume 2009). Another widely recognised tenet of CSR undertaking is the need to look
first for solutions that achieve multiple objectives at once. It is not clear how such
stakeholders’ collaborations which are often framed in terms of the search for―win-
win solutions is maintaining the relationships while developing capacity remains
complex (Cornelius et al. 2008; Jamali and Keshishian 2009).
The relationship between community demand and promotion of collective
actions has been an issue in recent CSR literature. As Behera and Engel in their
study illustrated that community people may prefer to join rules and provisions to
achieve extremely felt needs that could be met by only collective action. On the
other hand, Bardhan (1993) in his study argues that CD outcomes would be
achieved at reasonable stages of community demand. In the present study context,
it is imperative to explore how resource scarcity and social gaps provide opportunities
for tribal people and people of Resettlement and Rehabilitation communities to
engage in business innovations.
H1.2: SAIL-RSP’s CSR interventions towards promotion of collective actions will

positively impact performances on more community engagement.
CSR from social capital perspectives
Increasing evidence shows that social cohesion is critical for communities to sustain the
development outcomes (Svendsen and Svendsen 2011). Social capital is often defined
in terms of groups, network, norms of reciprocity, cooperation and trust (Krishna 2007).
According to Krishna (2007), research to assess levels of social capital influencing
collective actions may capture its multi-dimensional nature. CSR towards CD is
realised in terms of welfare to partners and active engagement of CD through strategic
CSR interventions. The distinctive contribution of organisations for the community
development is realised in areas of health, education, environment, infrastructure,
livelihood promotion and women empowerment and so on. Of late, the corporate
house is pursuing significant partnerships with NGOs to empower the micro-
community through development interventions. As is now well known—and well
accepted in principle among non-financial stakeholders—practitioners, community
leaders, environmentalists, civil societies, activists and community common—that
corporate houses must perform an inclusive and collective role in the society besides
providing demanded products at cost-effective prices, voluntarily submitting sustain-
ability reports, ensuring high labour values at the workplace for promoting social
inclusion and justice towards human rights abuse and environment degradation (Kumar
2008; OECD-ILO 2008; Mishra and Suar 2010; Tulder and van der Zwart 2006; Dutta
and Durgamohan 2009).
Study document the activities undertaken by the Indian corporate house to empower
rural farmers such as Kishan Kendras by Tata group and Ralli, e-Choupals and
KisanIndia.com by ITC, Shubh Labh services by Mahindra (Singh and Bhagat 2004).
A multi-national company such as Satyam Computers promoting a range of CD
activities (Pradhan and Ranjan 2010) is another example. According to Husted (2003),
when corporate house focuses their development actions on neighbouring communities
around their area of operation, both the employees and local community help reap the
organisational transformation to another higher level (Pradhan and Ranjan 2010; Mishra
and Suar 2010). Brugmann and Prahalad (2007) find such a best practice of partnership
between Life Insurance Corporation of India with micro-credit federations’ work in the
rural Andhra Pradesh. The introduction of ‘Project Shakti’ for creating livelihood of
rural women in India by Hindustan Lever Limited helps increase the consumption of its
products around 20% (Sood and Arora 2006). Though past studies suggest a negative
relation between CSR towards the community and business performance (Brugmann
and Prahalad 2007). Mishra and Suar (2010) observed that investments in CSR activities
benefit corporate house to take reasonable advantages in terms of tax savings, regulatory
burden and skill development of local labour (Waddock and Graves 1997) and give a
holistically business performance image. However, the organisational imperative of
corporate house also tends to give high priority to the quantitative approaches which
provide contextualised measures that enable the organisation to see complex problems
and diverse context in ways that promote them with a particular capacity to respond to
them. Endeavours and positive relations between CSR performances and community
development of a set of studies (Margolis and Walsh 2003; Brugmann and Prahalad
2007; Sood and Arora 2006; Pradhan and Ranjan 2010) stressed the limitation of an
instrumental methodological approach and called for a more methodological pluralism.
This study would like to assess how CD project interventions of CSR impact the social
capital (can be positive, negative or both) and conversely, areas with certain types and
levels of social capital experience with more successful project operations than areas
with other types and levels of social capital.
Pradhan and Ranjan (2010) have reviewed 14 Indian corporate houses’ CSR
initiatives for rural community development and enlisted some unique contributions
such as Dr. Reddy’s Labs’ job-oriented course to youth, Tata Steel’s livelihood
enterprise promotion and hospital on wheels, education fellowship etc., Lupin India’s
livelihood skill development and TB programme, ICICI Bank’s livelihood micro-
financial services and women empowerment, Ambuja Cement Ltd. and Larsen and
Tuberose’s skill development among youth for employability and women empower-
ment, Coca-Cola’s ‘The Schools into Smiles Project’, Bharat Petroleum and NTPC’s
SHG income-generation programme for livelihood promotion and Asian Paints’ health
immunisation programmes. However, this study is limited to capturing how people’s
interest of participation in a community would vary across gender, class, caste,
ethnicity, education etc. Community women as the active partner of CSR project cycle
and gender issues are less researched. Study on gender dimension, in turn, might help
to look at how both women and men of a community respond to the CSR intervention
to meet their extreme felt for need differently and shape both the social capital and
corporate image among community milieu.
H1.3: CSR project interventions towards promoting community social capital will
positively impact SAIL-RSP’s non-financial performances.
CSR from women empowerment perspective
Pro-active policies and practices towards gender mainstreaming becoming a part and
parcel of new systems of societal governance which has been emphasising more
socialised market drivers may open up the opportunity for women. Empowering
women and promoting their entrepreneurial spirit is a vital aspect of CSR for business
houses like SAIL, Tata Group, HUL, Vedanta, Hindalco, Jindal and banks like ICICI
and much more (Abraham 2013a, b). This has increased the scope for meaningful
intervention by corporate India towards CD and contributing towards inclusive growth.
CSR agenda towards mainstreaming gender issues playing a critical role in the CD is
less recognised and lack adequate research (Acharya and Lund 2002; Walby 2005).
Study evidence shows that companies are working in joint collaboration with Self Help
Groups (SHGs) and women’s organisations to address gender issues and seeking active
engagement of women in the community development programme such as livelihood
promotion, skill and capacity building programme, maternal and child health issues,
right to information, entitlement and representation and so on. Women empowerment
as one of RSP’s core CSR activities since development and empowerment of women
has been seen is ultimately imperative for the inclusive growth of the nation. Hence, it
is imperative to study the relation between women empowerment and its influence on
corporate CD imperative.
H1.4: RSP-CSR project interventions towards women for livelihood promotion

and their engagement in community development will positively impact gender
equality and social justice.
Case of Rourkela Steel Plant—a unit of Steel Authority of India Limited
This case is about RSP-SAIL’s corporate social responsibility initiatives. SAIL is one of
the seven Maharatnas of the country’s central public sector enterprises (www.SAIL).
SAIL with its nine steel plants across India has been emphasising more socialised
market drivers. RSP is at the edge of completing a huge modernisation and expansion
programme. It is expected that from such a phase of modernisation and expansion,
SAIL will not only enhance quality, improve labour productivity increase economy of
scale, enlarge customer base, reduce cost of production through superior Techno-
economics and better market compatibility but also promote stricter adherence to the
unpaid input elements of natural capital norms. Despite impressive comprehensive
efforts to reduce the environmental content, the scale of production has increased at
such a rate as to overwhelm the positive effects of technological progress. It is expected
that RSP-SAIL would come under scrutiny by the community in and around grappling
with what benefits can be obtained in the resettlement and rehabilitate (R&R) colonies
development package for the displaced households and activists, and environmental
experts who look at the water depletion, air pollution, industrial solid waste, discharge
of waste toxic water, records in forest stewardship, biodiversity loss in the areas in
which it established plants and water reservoir over Sankha River.
Corporate governance from social responsibility perspective
In view of the above backdrop, as a responsible corporate citizen, RSP has carefully
designed and implemented interventions to better the quality of its social climate—in
its plants, townships and also in the peripheral areas. RSP-SAIL claimed that much
before CSR became a catchword, it had recognised the importance of this concept since its
inception in 1973. SAIL with its steel plant operation has transformed Bhilai, Rourkela
and Durgapur into today’s busy industrial and commercial centres for economic activities
and infrastructure. Consequently, SAIL put system and management in place for
neighbourhoods in and around which its plants and units operate and enhance their
stakeholder relationships. According to the core management ideology and style, a wide
range of CSR initiatives had been undertaken to improve a harmonious association with
the local people and to develop their quality of life and well being. The tagline of SAIL is
that ‘There’s a little bit of SAIL in everybody’s life’. Based on its preliminary success in
the field of peripheral development and environment conservation measures, RSP-SAIL
has designed CSR programmes that promote model steel villages, education, health care,
infrastructural development, livelihoods for income generation, access to potable water
and sanitation, women empowerment through Deepika Mahila Jagriti Sansthan, support
for the physically/mentally challenged etc., at each of its plants and units.
CSR towards peripheral development
Our field observation and discussion with various community leaders and research
participants revealed that SAIL’s strategic collaboration with various internal and
external stakeholders, the State and District administrations, the member of local
Panchayats, NGOs, civil societies and people’s representatives are its core strength.
SAIL in joint collaboration with small and local entrepreneurs, SHGs, NGOs, state
government and the centre is reaching out to the grassroot level. By partnering
creatively, SAIL is making efforts to ensure the best utilisation of the resources and
maximum return to the community people. RSP-SAIL has made a special intervention
to initiate new projects on road connectivity, construction of bridges/culverts, access to
improved water sources, etc. Infrastructure development activities have been undertak-
en in peripheral areas including the model steel villages by way of constructing
culverts, roads, village community centres, school boundary fencing, classrooms,
shopping complex and market platforms. The goal of SAIL is to inculcate the spirit
of entrepreneurship and innovation among the community project participants.
While the intent in many of SAIL-CSR initiatives towards governance, information
disclosure, stakeholders, institutional networks and sustainability, whether the range of
community development activities as well as the depth of relationships have been
noble, inconsistencies between the intent and approaches, methods and techniques may
make these initiatives unsustainable over time. Further, the inherent inconsistencies and
lack of synergy across levels and structure will more probably perpetuate a lock-in
effect and path dependency at a greater external control than freedom. In practice,
where a corporate makes it extremely hard for their stakeholders to leave them even if
they want to has created a loss of autonomy at both ends. It appears that unless
corporate, stakeholders and communities recognise these lock-in effects and flaws of
path dependency syndrome and simultaneously make strategic action to unravel the
gaps that might emerge from the various lock-in effects; CSR transition to the com-
munity and environmental sustainability will only be partial at best.
H1.5: CSR project interventions towards peripheral development and environment

conservation will positively impact SAIL-RSP’s sustainability credentials.
Conceptual framework
The literature aims at addressing sustainability which has very little explanation on
why a particular perspective on epistemology (i.e. knowledge construction) and
ontology (i.e. value creation and relationship with the ecological order) may make
the sustainability concept more complex. Secondly, what might the ‘post-CSR’
transitional space looks like in such a space while usefulness, doability and critical
ends might, collectively, serve the movement of sustainability. This article attempts
to fill that gap by explaining a conceptual model below in Fig. 1: first, depicting the
five above hypotheses on CSR performances of RSP-SAIL on community devel-
opment and sustainability; second, groups the performances into four quadrants
based on the breadth of activates and depth of engagement; and third, revitalising the
high-high, especially interesting to us, the bringing into being of the new new. That
later phrase comes from the Spivak (1987) in speaking of the new new (p. 67) of the
indigenous dominant (p. 68) and Shiva (1988).
Description of the study area, data collection, and methods
Rourkela, the fourth largest city is popularly known as Ispat Nagar (Steel City) of
the Indian state of Odisha. It is located nearby Sankha River and surrounded by a
range of hills of Sundargarh District. As per the census report of 2011, the popula-
tion of Rourkela Industrial Township is 273,217. In 1960s, first public sector steel
plant was established in Rourkela with the help of German businesses Krupp and
Demag. As earlier in the 1970s, the then steel town was one of the largest German
colonies outside Germany. More than Rs.50 Crores has been spent in various
peripheral community development activities up to a radius of 16 km around the
plants and its units. These are in the adjoining revenue blocks of Bisra, Lathikata,
Nuagaon and Kuarmunda in Sundargarh district of Odisha. The CSR activities span
in nearly 200 villages, while focused and sustained interventions are there in as
many as 50 villages.
Community H1.1
Depth of investments in community
development &
Innovations CSR High New
performances
Promotion of H1.2 & Brand New
image High Depth, High Depth,
Collective actions
Low breadth High breadth
Promotion of Social H1.3
capital
Low depth, Low depth,
Women empowerment H1.4
Low breadth High breadth
and Livelihood Low
promotion Gender
equality, Social
Peripheral Low High
justice &
development and H1.5 Sustainability
Environment Breadth of investments in community
conservation
Fig. 1 Conceptual model depicting the CSR performances of Non-Financial Stakeholders and Sustainability
Sample
In order to validate the research hypotheses, data was collected both from RSP-SAIL’s
annual reports 2012 and 2015 and through field work. Primary information was
collected through in-depth, open-ended personal interview with community stake-
holders, teachers, SHG members, youth groups, retired employees, NGO partners
and officials. The study looked at the breadth and depth of the CSR initiatives and its
transitional strategies from CD and environment sustainability perspectives. Focus
group discussion (FGDs) were held after a transect walk. The inherent scope of FGD
is that they occur naturally over a period of time, are grounded and bounded in context,
rich and holistic and flexible for interpretation.
Measures
The CSR attributes are grouped under four categories, corporate governance, CD,
stakeholders’ welfare and environmental responsibility. Qualitative research methods
are being used for subjective measures of perception and experience of respondents
which are complementing in nature to situate its intangible impact (Pradhan and Ranjan
2010) of the project initiatives. Relevant feedback received from project participants,
women leaders, youth and officials were also analysed. Few variables were assessed to
rate the given statements on a 5-point Likert rating scale where ‘completely disagree’
was coded as ‘1’ and ‘completely agree’ was coded as ‘5’. Community resource
mapping was conducted in the resettlement colonies to understand the status of
protected forest and water reservoir, infrastructure, RSP projects, common resources,
sources of fuel energy, the source of income and livelihood pattern.
Narrative inquiry in the subjective perception
The ethical value orientation of qualitative research is heavily dependent on re-

searcher’s interpretation of the protagonists’ experiences, self-observation, events,
documents and interview material. In this study, we highlight the significance of
narrative inquiry in situating the experience and subjective perception of research
protagonists as a way of understanding the community engagement of CSR-SAIL in
Rourkela and its imperatives for performances. The literature on narrative research
suggests that the narrative method of inquiry is one which reasonably grasps the words
and phrases of marginalised bodies, embedded in the gendered social networks and
organisations (Acharya 2015) and necessitates considerations of relational knowing and
being. The critical narrative analysis takes into account the situation of knowledge,
produced jointly by the researcher and researched and dependant on space and time
(Acharya 2011, 2015).
Open-ended, in-depth interview, focus group discussion and subjective percep-
tion of the key informants have been used to influence the self-reflexivity of the
researcher and its critical interpretations. It would be seen that community people’s
oral accounts embodied the disputes within and negotiations with, has drawn
attention to the intertwined construction of hegemonic expansion with a techno-
rational framework under CSR 2013 Act, SAIL Maharatna’s innovation to ease
social issues and space for sustainability.
Control variables
Our emphasis is on exploring voices of both male and female of the community
people including key informants. Data on the degree of community people’s active
engagement in CSR activities could, however, vary according to factors such as
assertiveness, skills, age, class, race, caste and spatial designations. Gender was
coded as the categorical variable where 1 indicate male and 2 indicate female
respondents. Respondents were also asked to indicate their present age, education,
skills etc.
Result and discussions
The Rourkela Steel Plant of SAIL through the following activities keeps on heading
towards the fulfilment of corporate social responsibility.
CSR towards model steel villages
A total number of 79 villages of 8 states across the country have been identified as
‘model steel villages’. RSP collaborated with district administration and adopted 16
numbers of peripheral villages of four blocks of the Sundargarh district. RSP-CSR is
creating a model of holistic developments, encompassing infrastructural development,
health care, education, women empowerment, income generation and livelihood inputs
etc., for the following 16 villages shown in Table 3. In order to provide a comprehen-
sive development of both physical and social infrastructure, these villages are domi-
nated by scheduled tribes. Of the total population of 17,342 in these villages, 81%
Table 3 Name of the 16 Model

SL. Block Village
Steel Villages in four Blocks of
Sundargarh District adopted by
1 Kuarmunda Baniguni
RSP-SAIL
2 Dumerjore
3 Jagdishpur
4 Jaidega
5 Lodosara
6 Ushra
7 Bankibahal
8 Lathikata Chikatmati
9 Rajgangpur Laing
10 Bisra Bijadih
11 Dalposh
12 Jabaghat
13 Jabapanposh
14 Jamsera
15 Kapatmunda
Source: RSP-SAIL’s annual re- 16 Pograbahal
port 2013–2014
(14,113) belong to the scheduled tribes. Out of the 16 villages illustrated in Table 3, 5
villages including Ushra, Laing, Jaidega, Bankibahal and Dumerjore are having the
resettlement colonies. CD activities include the infrastructure such as the construction
of village roads for better accessibility, village community centres, shops, market
platforms, village signboards, classrooms and boundary/fencing in village schools,
water supply and sanitation systems. Livelihood for income generation through Wadi
project includes improved agriculture, animal husbandry, women empowerment etc. In
order to ensure access to water infrastructure, RSP-CSR in joint collaboration with
Gramme Vikash (GV), a pioneer NGO, is implementing water and sanitation project
within the radius of approximately 16–18 km of the four adjoining blocks of Rourkela,
i.e. Bisra, Kuarmunda, Nuagaon and Lathikata.
RSP-CSR already had an agreement with NABARD to conduct a survey and assess
the need for households. RSP-CSR is working in collaboration with few of the best
NGOs and consultants to formulate and implement innovative and sustainable liveli-
hood projects. This includes HelpAge India, Bharat Sewashram Sangha, Anugraha
Drishtidaan, APF, GV, SRI, BAIF etc. to name a few. Each of the collaboration has a
greater potential to change the socio-economic condition of the community people.
Case of Chutiatola (hamlet) Kuarmunda Block
We visited Chutiatola (hamlet) which is located on the way to many other ‘steel model
village’. This hamlet was not on the ambitious agenda of the steel model village.
Villagers with severe lack of water requested RSP-CSR and GV to incorporate them
into the on-going water infrastructure for consumption and sanitation of 100% house-
hold coverage project. The tank capacity was to carry 33,000 l of water. SAIL-RSP has
incorporated many more such villages around model villages. After completion of such
project, one of the GV employee stays in the water infrastructure centre. He has also
been selected as an active member of the village pani-panchayat committee. We
observed that village women are shy of outsiders. Our open-ended discussion process
and narrative inquiry had help reduce the outsider-insider barriers. It facilitated us to
understand household member’s participation in a range of CSR initiatives for com-
munity development. The next section discusses the same.
CSR towards access to clean water and sanitation
We observed that neighbouring communities’ spatiotemporal distribution of water

resources is inconsistent with socio-economic demand for water. This inconsistency
is caused by hills and undulating land structure. Water stress and resettlement has
reduced agricultural production in neighbouring villages. Water for household con-
sumption (drinking and sanitation) is intensified by dried out surface water reservoir,
ponds and well in summer season and prohibition of the use of reservoir water,
population growth and urbanisation. Farmers of these villages said that poor cost
recovery, deteriorated irrigation systems and lack of surface water reservoir and water
delivery are important reasons not to prioritise investment in agricultural production.
Therefore, water network construction is a key water availability strategy and the RSP-
SAIL tool for water resource planning had been promoted by the CSR to alleviate the
severe water scarcity since 2009.
Women of the tribal household are taking much interest to participate in such
construction work. In fact, their share of daily labour during construction brought
great relief to their responsibility of ensuring household water requirement. Women
see that location of the bathroom and toilet is a right place between kitchen and
cowshed, and a third pipe point is extended outside the room. This is to fetch
drinking water, cleaning utensils and washing clothes. The officer from GV said
that the third pipe point was not on their agenda, but women of the household took
interest to have an extra for their kitchen purposes. GV provides Rs.7000 worth of
construction materials, and the household was responsible for paying to labour and
mason or construct the household water network structure. At present, the material
cost has gone high and CSR contribution had also increased to Rs 16,400 per
household. Households receive water supply three times a day and were paying
Rs.100/month for the water service. Yey, Chutiatola (hamlet) committee decided to
collect a per-head Rs.10 since 2014. The bore well structure constructed is lifting
water from below 60 to 80 ft with a 10 hp motor pump to the water tank. In rainy
season, monsoon water runs down from the hilly area without compensating full
strength of the ground water level. Depletion of the ground water level has certainly
negative impact at a long run. GV officer said that as per government instruction,
pumping ground water has been stopped and replaced with the construction of a dug
well.
Case of Ushra resettlement colony of Kuarmunda Block
During 1960s, RSP had established 13 numbers of rehabilitated colonies. The Ushra
colony of Dumurajore Panchayat of Kuarmunda Block is one of them. The Ushra
colony has 93 households with a total population of 471. Road infrastructure has been
constructed by RSP. The population of these households was native tribe around
Sankha River and plant sites. These are Oram, Munda and Kissan tribe.
Govinda Saha aged about 60 years old belonging to RSP-Ushra colony remembered
how as a child he found his village got buried under Mandira water reservoir. Govinda
had retired as a peon of RSP 4 years ago. The main source of livelihood of the Ushra
colony households before rehabilitation was from hunting, gathering of NTFPs and fuel
woods, fish from the river and agricultural and allied activities. Govinda said that his
parent received Rs.5000 of compensation for the loss of around 8–10 acres of land and
he got a job at a peon rank. Govinda speaks in Sadri language. He learned Hindi and
English language to understand his officers especially the outsiders. After his retire-
ment, he received a total amount of Rs.13 Lakh. He said that RSP has no such pension
guaranty scheme for his type of job that time. Govinda’s son just completed ITI and
was working in Rourkela. Rehabilitated people as employees worked from their
colonies. So every day after cycling a distance of 70 km, no time was left to look after
his family or children’s education. Mothers and children of R&R families hardly passed
out matriculation or college goer. Boys of such family migrated to distant places after a
skill development training to look for a job in any construction or manufacturing sites
while girls remained at home jobless or married.
A deep forest with dense teak wood had been cleared by the contractors to
establish RSP colonies and infrastructure. The remaining forest available around
Mandira reservoir has been taken care of by the Van Surakhya Samiti of the
Mandriya village only. The population of the rehabilitated colonies had no land
left for agricultural activities. Lack of forest as a source of energy for cooking and
boiling and fencing have increased pressure on the rest of the bush forest given that
selling of wood for a livelihood remained constant for some families. The Lift
Irrigation point extended from the Mandira dam was the only source of water for
agriculture. The pani-panchayat committee was formed to take care of the repairing
and maintenance. Govinda said that many households could not afford to pay
around Rs.200/month for power charge. People remained defaulters without timely
payment of electricity bills and without repairing and maintenance of the canal
network debride deposited and lift point remained defunct.
Women member belong to Jal-Parimal (water and sanitation) committees said that
their confidence is owing to their 50% representation in the pani-panchayat committee
decision-making process. At present, the functioning of water infrastructure project by
RSP-SAIL has solved one of their extreme felt needs. So, the community people show
a great interest to join in any RSP-CSR community development initiatives. Sarpanch
of Dumurajore Panchayat said that as early as the 1970s, entire land distribution of the
R&R area was planned by the RSP-SAIL. Household located at other villages are the
user of MNREGS watershed management programme and so on. The villagers en-
gaged in the forest plantation activities would continue for 2 years with a labour charge
of Rs.150 to164/day.
CSR towards income generation and livelihood promotion
Project Parswanchal Vikas was organised with the expert partnership of BAIF, Pune.
Agro-horti-forestry (Wadi) programme which has been undertaken for live-stock de-
velopment, improving agriculture and allied activities, provisioning of smokeless
chullahs, water resources/watershed development through SHG and village-level orga-
nisation (VLO), skill development training and capacity building of rural people were
imparted. Employability enhancement programmes were also facilitated in the health
sector and ITI sectors. SKS is the only private micro-finance agency and has access to
the household for a loan with Rs.1.8 per 100 per month. SRI NGO of Ranchi which is
one of the women empowerment NGOs appointed by RSP in 2010 facilitated training
for some women SHGs. SHG members utilised their training skill to prepare roasted
rice, mixture, pickles and papad including production and chow mein. Their customers
are the villagers with an occasional sale to the visitors. The young girls of the Christian
colony were of the opinion that if given continuous support, they are going to be
interested to start their own business on garment design and tailoring, vegetable and
grocery shop, repairing shop under the umbrella of a registered producer’s company.
Case of Laing resettlement colony of Rajgangpur Block
Laing resettlement colony belonging to Rajgangpur Block is dominant with Christian

minority. Out of a total number of 781 people, 380 are females. Of the 146 households,
53 are BPL card holders. In the focus group discussion, the participants said that more
than 65% households did not yet hold a BPL card. A trained local women worker is
looking after promotion of women SHG members’ income-generating activities. She is

also one of the members of Jal-Parimal (water and sanitation) committee. She con-
firmed that five of SHGs are formed by the Anganwadi worker and one under BAIF in
2006. With the help of GV, one SHG was formed recently. Women of this SHG are
selling roasted rice and pickles. Women of the Christian minority have shown interest
to form a producer company to sustain the livelihood project.
We got acquainted with the President and Secretary of Indira SHG of Chungiati
village on our way back from Liang resettlement colony. We had a discussion with the
members while they were working on the construction of a fish pond. They measured
the total square feet of work that had been completed in an acre of land. The landowner
received a loan from the watershed development fund to undertake fishery and
vegetable farming in his agricultural field. The lady engineer said that watershed
development fund is available for community people to undertake the watershed
project, livelihood projects and Production System Micro Enterprises.
This SHG has been providing services in joint collaboration with the watershed
department to complete construction work on loose bond structure, field bonding and
fencing cultivated land etc. It has undertaken projects worth Rs.14 Lakh, and this fish
pond project work is worth Rs.5 Lakh. SHG member negotiates the square-foot charge
with local contractors and labour and make a profit from the difference between
estimated cost and actual cost including their labour. It took them 7 days to complete
this fish pond project and could earn a profit of Rs.20,000. We found that this is one of
the innovative initiatives undertaken by a member of the SHGs. Such best practices
should be identified and demonstrated among other women who lack awareness about
such innovative method of income generation.
CSR towards community education
Deepika Ispat Sikshya Sadan imparts free education to 344 underprivileged students
and is functioning since July 2007. Both Home and Hope and Asha institutions are
accommodating mentally challenged and deaf children for education. Radhakrishna
Dristihina Vidyalaya at Lathikata is patronised and financially supported by RSP from
time to time. Various scholarship schemes had been formulated to promote education in
its peripheral areas. One is a merit-based cash award scheme for rank 1 until rank 5
position holders of both boys and girls from each of the 30 high schools and 50 ME
schools. One exclusive scheme for professional studies provides financial assistance of
Rs.1 Lakh to 10 ST and/or SC students with an equal number of male and female to
pursue undergraduate courses in medical, engineering and agriculture. Underprivileged
scholarship scheme was awarded scholarships of Rs.10,800 for students in classes I‑IV
up to class V and Rs.12,000 for students in classes VI–XII. Further, schools in the
peripheral villages are supported with facilities such as class rooms, boundary
wall/fencing, tube wells, library and computer centres with PCs, computer chairs,
printers, library tables with chairs with an initial book grant of Rs.5000.
CSR towards joint collaboration with Akshaya Patra Foundation
Akshaya Patra Foundation (APF) is facilitating mid-day meals to more than 195,929
students in different schools of Odisha. RSP-CSR and APF joint collaboration project
is for preparation and supply of hygienic mid-day meals to around 431 schools in
Rourkela and peripheral areas (Rourkela Municipality, Bisra Block, and Lathikata
Block) from a centralised hi-tech kitchen set up on a daily basis. It covered more than
53,000 students by 2015. Table 4 gives an account of the place and number of students.
RSP-CSR contributes Rs.2 for each in addition to the per mid-day meal budget of the
Government of India. APF started an extension of the kitchen place and utensils. The
large stainless steel utensils are purchased from the factory located at Coimbatore. In
fact, there is no such manufacturing centre in Odisha to use RSP steel for consumer
utilitarian purposes. The CSR Department was conferred with a performance excel-
lence award for a special job (Akshaya Patra) in its 2014 annual performance review
and award function.
CSR towards community women empowerment
Project Kishori is an intervention that engages the community’s adolescent girls to learn
computer software and hardware and has been instrumental for self-employment. A
Table 4 Reach-out of the Akshaya Patra Foundation in India
No. Location No. of students
1 Rourkela 52,940
2 Puri 55,835
3 Nayagarh 24,580
4 Cuttack and Bhubaneswar 62,574
5 Vishakhapatnam 5249
6 Hyderabad 54,849
7 Gouhati 53,649
8 Bhilai 23,674
9 Ahmedabad 121,508
10 Vadodara 113,593
11 Surat 165,057
12 Bangalore 184,530
13 Belari 115,945
14 Hubli 126,693
15 Mangalore 22,679
16 Mysore 13,835
17 Jaipur 92,763
18 Nathadwara 25,274
19 Baram 11,456
20 Jodhpur 6417
21 Chennai 718
22 Vrindavan 135,262
Total 1,463,180
Source: AkshayaPatra Foundation’s annual report 2014

total of 40 Women Resource Centres (WRCs) has been established in 30 peripheral

villages including all the 16 model steel villages. Project Jibika facilitated trained
women in sewing and embroidery skill for tailoring as a source of income. Parvati
SHG from Dalposh village and Anjali SHG from Baniguni village were mobilised
through 6 days advanced course training on cutting design and tailoring.
A new chapter has begun in the area of women empowerment through an opening
of a Handloom Weaving Centre on the auspicious occasion of Gandhi Jayanti on 2nd
October 2012 in association with leading philanthropic organisation of the Steel
City ‘DMJS’. The centre is known as Deepika Mahila Jagruti Sansthan, an estab-
lishment imparting free training to from underprivileged peripheral areas on skills
relevant to handloom, i.e. pre-loom activities, weaving on looms and exposure to
established handloom pockets in the state. During our visit to this centre on 10th
March 2015, the third batches of trainees were practising by doing the weaving
work. The main criteria for the selection of women trainees are that they represent
economically backward villages like Dalposh, Jhirpani, Bartoli etc. A total number
of 39 women were selected to receive training for a period of 18 months. Each of
them receives a stipend of Rs.100 a day excluding some other facilities. The young
women were undergoing 6 months of training under the master weavers from
Balangir, Sambalpur, Bargarh and Sonepur etc. Experts at the handloom centre
trained these women in making bed sheets, various cloth materials and cotton saris,
long warping, short warping, starching, sizing and dyeing.
The female trainees and master artisans said that they had taken the risk to cross
community comfort zone and committed to building a structure and skill set required
to master handloom weaving and establish their own business. This, in turn, would
be the major source of income opportunities and well being of their family. Women
aspired to become self-employed and improve their quality of life. However, the
journey from a trainee to the recognition of a master weaver/self-employee depends
upon their own performances and future scope which will be facilitated by the RSP-
SAIL throughout the process, for example organising exposure visit to traditional
master weaver’s communities, understanding the demand for the customers, market
linkages, membership in a producers’ cooperative society, availability of work shed,
bank linkage for loan, loom machine, insurance and basic assets, agreement of the
parents and in-laws to take up their skill for self-employment purpose and
acquainting to a great deal of work-life balance. A few stakeholders said that it is
possible for RSP-CSR team. The RSP-CSR team organises an exposure visit to other
steel plants which would enable mutual learning and insights to enhance community
engagement. The key informant said that such cross-learning exercises are benefit-
ing the industries and the community to draw synergy from each other. Appreciating
the CSR activities, the RSP-CSR has an agreement with the NABARD to conduct a
socio-economic study of communities under the present CSR undertaking and
feasibility of extending their support for holistic improvement in the quality of life
of the underprivileged living in the R&R colony and in the periphery villages.
CSR towards community health care
Endeavours and positive relations between the CSR performances and community
development have been reported from the tribal community people who have taken
benefit of the health care interventions and access to health services of RSP. Ispat
General Hospital (IGS), Sector-22 caters to the health care requirements of the
region. In view, the needs and requirements of the region IGS has taken up various
projects, such as awareness programmes on HIV/AIDS, Dengue, Chikungunya,
Malaria, immunisation/pulse polio programmes etc. An International Centre of
Excellence for Malaria Research has been established recently in the hospital with
the collaboration of the Indian Council of Medical Research, New York University,
and Pennsylvania State University, USA. Waiver of treatment charges is also made
for poor patients, in full/part. Ispat Sanjeevani, a free medical centre is operating for
the underprivileged operating 6 days a week. In the years 2012–2013, specific
medical projects have been taken up to improve health conditions of the community
people. Health centres at Chikatmati village and Jalda resettlement organised free
medical camps at 32 peripheral locations, community-based rehabilitation (CBR)
programme for the mentally and physically challenged, mega-health camps, project
Sunayana for vision impaired, project Sneha for leprosy patients, project Sushruti
for hearing impaired, project Chetna for thalassemia and sickle cell patients, project
Akshay for TB patients, Project Surabhi for free treatment of women with
gynaecological disorders and project Harsh for surgical correction and project for
RCH and family welfare camps at IGH.
CSR towards community sports and culture
The Ispat Stadium and Ispat Indoor Stadium of RSP serve athlete spirit of youth in
the campus and public around the peripheral region. Various infrastructural facilities
created by RSP are such as auditoriums, community centres including those in the
peripheral villages are facilitating execution of the annual cultural calendar. In
2012–2013, specific projects were initiated namely the Hockey Stadium with 32
cadets―Samvardhan—Rural Sports and―Synergy—Lok Samskrutik Mahotsav.
The goal is to harness positive energy of the tribal community, to provide scope
and encouragement to their hidden talents and to contribute to the region’s rich
cultural heritage. These have been instrumental in producing outstanding tribal
athletes’ mark in the national as well as international arena.
Conclusion and implication for sustainability
The result of our study on the conduct of CSR performances of Rourkela Steel Plant
of SAIL and literature review brought us with strong evidence that the journey
towards business transformation via CSR performances and sustainability has begun
for many of India’s companies. An increase in aggregate CSR boosts on holistic CD
can be seen as prominent since 2013 and onwards. 2014 witnessed a more public
interest especially among community women, youth and children to take opportu-
nities of the basket of options (the peripheral and model village development,
education and services, green environment, health care, infrastructure, like water
and sanitation, sports and health care, livelihoods and women empowerment), while
the amount of money spent on CSR spending has gone beyond the 2% of the net
profit. The new thrust towards CD has shifted the focus from the ‘strategic’ and
‘philanthropic’ approaches to a responsible business transformation while many
senior managers admit that they have taken the lead and are setting the pace for
responsible growth.
The case of three communities such as Chutiatola hamlet, Ushra resettlement
colony and Laing resettlement colony unravelled issues and their specific concerns
including how RSP-CSR project interventions have been addressing such issues.
Capturing such issues is important because influence from a higher level of aggre-
gate information corporate house may oversee communities at different levels of
development having different needs and might require specific CSR initiatives
depending on their development situations and prospects. Perhaps more important,
however, is that the narrative method of inquiring unfold the concern of protagonists
that speaking about their experience is not always a source of power unless that
power is discursively established in its dialectical and spatial relationship within the
larger structural and cultural contexts in which speaking takes place (Spivak 1987;
Acharya 2015). Furthermore, a common problem may exist among the women
participants because of their social positioning and negotiation capacity. As we
can see, the Ushra resettlement colony on the thrust of project intervention could
be a transformation from an extensive model of peripheral development to an
intensive holistic model of CD and environmental stewardship which might have
the critical bearing on sustainability.
Women of the Christian minority of Laing resettlement colony are concerned
about the possibility of deepening the CSR social innovation to foster livelihood
diversity, especially to give the best innovative shape to the steel model villages.
Community representatives, NGOs, SHG members, local entrepreneurs and gov-
ernment institutional alliances look at the core principle of SAIL-CSR transitional
strategy for business transformation which would be able to continue the CSR
initiatives as well as broadening their scope and responsibility. In view of this
transitional phase, the present study purposes a comprehensive research framework
as a breakthrough to revitalise the local aspirations and long-term investment in
sustainability and CSR.
Figure 2 shows a list of variables that are discussed in ‘Result and discussions’
and ‘Case of Chutiatola (hamlet) Kuarmunda Block’, ‘Case of Ushra resettlement
colony of Kuarmunda Block’ and ‘Case of Laing resettlement colony of
Rajgangpur Block’ on CSR performances from social responsibility and sustain-
ability perspectives. Interestingly, the analytical framework also shows the order of
layering across the top-to-bottom and high interdependence of each layer to create
an impact which is useful, doable and with critical ends that might, collectively,
serve in revitalising the movement of sustainability. Apparently, a number of CSR-
community engagement combinations probably at different levels of communities
in terms of production, organisations, governance, institutions and culture of rela-
tionships would lead to achieving the new new of the indigenous-dominant (Shiva
1988) and effective CSR corporate image at large. While the desired direction of
each of the variables is well understood, the study needs to articulate the ways to
VARIABLES PERSPECTIVES VARIABLES

RELATIONSHIPS (COMMUNITY- CSR)
Concern for the Capitalist Philosophy & Actions Concern for Community &
Stakeholders Environment in an Ecosystem
Regulating Stakeholders Ethics, Morals & Values Self & Collective Regulations
Hierarchical & Asymmetric Faith, Belief & Corporate Egalitarian & Equity
Powers Construct
Low (Distrust, Competition & Notions of Interdependence & High (High Cooperation & Love)
Hate) Identifying self with others around
Culture of Capitalism Notions of Growth & Social Wealth Culture of Eco-feminism & Social
&Material Wealth Capital
LIVELIHOOD & PRODUCTION SYSTEM
Acquisitive Design & techniques Indigenously Innovative
Adopt Skill & patterns Live & Rejuvenate
External Resources & Revenue Local & Self-generative
Condensed Livelihood Diversity High-Value Creation
(centralised model) (Linkages with make in India, start-up,
digital and e-platform)
Superficial Livelihood Ecology Deep(sustainable, recycle &
revitalization of indigenous)
ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN FOR (COMMUNITY- SSR)
Large Size of Operation Small
Few in Scope Multiple
High Technology Low cost, recycle and innovative
Corporate Ownership Joint and gender sensitive
Complex & strategic Insights & Management Simple & just knowledge
COMMUNITY CSR GOVERNANCE
Professionalism Efficiency Principle Volunteerism
Positivism Problem Solving Approach Constructivism & pro-active
Centralisation Structural Orientation De-centralisation
Invisible Participation Decision-making Method Active Participation
(of elite stakeholders) (of diverse community)
Low Visibility Transparency & Accountability High good will and image
INSTITUTIONS (CSR-COMMUNITY-GLOBAL LEVEL)
Compartmental CSR Policy Signal Convergence & transform
Spreadover & Charitable Sustainable Development Approach Impact full & Saturation
Piecemeal Institutional Support Trust worthy, Value integration &
Holistic
Market and corporate Institutional Architecture Local-self-governance, (micro
communication determined ‘New New’ planning, NGOs and local aspiration)
Borderless loose market networks Network, Connection & Flow Collaboration,
(community determined)
Fig. 2 A community-corporate analytical framework: social responsibility and sustainability perspectives.
Source: Designed on the basis of the interpretation of field information 2015–2016 and content analysis
overcome the challenges to facilitate sustainability in livelihood system and ecol-

ogy, to deepen relationships with stakeholders, to strategise corporate-community
collective and improve social capital.
Relationship
The philosophy and actions of CSR for community development is derived from the
ethical and moral concerns of the corporate and generating long-run community
value. The key questions from a relational perspective however includes the
following: are company compassion and empathetic towards a holistic community
development and sustainable environment approach? Are the CSR initiatives
intended to revitalise livelihood ecology and to absorb grassroots innovation?
Are the types of existing relationship successful on greening the process of indus-
trial advancement, on saturating more harmonious and healthy relationship among
stakeholders (community, public and environment) seeking mutual benefits out of
the CSR agendas? The aim is to move up the value chain. The notion of business
growth and social wealth would create a scope for social innovations and represen-
tation of corporate reputation to achieve the 17 noble goals under the Sustainable
Development Goals 2030. This is true because such insightful corporate construct
shall influence faith and belief among community people, increase low-income
citizens’ confidence, engage human capital, mainstream gender issues and strategic
framing of community development agendas.
Livelihood and production system
The corporate insights can make best use of their investment to revitalise the commu-
nity resources, community livelihood system, ecology and diversity (DFID 2000;
DFID 1999). CSR employees in partnership with local NGOs and GOs can facilitate
such SHGs, producers’ companies/cooperatives to register and create a brand of their
own. The key CSR insights requiring analysis of the variables in Table 2 in order to
facilitate the local level for business incubation and entrepreneurship for livelihood
diversification are as below.
1. Accessing to a wider ideas pool for start-up and flourish

2. Facilitating indigenously driven innovation and revenue-generative model
3. Acquiring leadership insights in usable knowledge
4. Building confidence by ensuring entitlement, safety, patent and insurance
5. Co-designing of evaluation
6. Supporting for change and development process, capacity building and risk
taking
7. Enabling a safer space to legitimate experimentation
8. Opening a gateway to various stakeholders, teams and thought leaders
9. Removing obstacle, e.g. power to innovate
10. Integrating values with product, price, place and promotion
11. Harnessing local and self-generative, high-value creation
12. Identifying and linking the producers/incubators to take opportunities of financial
services, infrastructural, ITC services, make in India, start-up business, digital and
e-platform, markets to goods and services produced by these businesses.
Organisational design for community SSR
The size, scope, technology, ownership and strategic intelligence management perspec-
tive of CSR initiative can facilitate higher frequency of interactions among the officials,
stakeholders, NGOs and project participants would increase a greater number of
transactions throughout the year and help members find greater value through these
interactions and transactions that need further exploration. However, the characteristics
of responsible actors that can facilitate the social process and deliver product require
pro-active, constructive, volunteerism, de-centralisation and active participation of the
diverse community.
Community CSR governance
The analysis of efficiency principle, structural orientation, decision-making meth-

od, transparency and accountability of CSR initiative adopted in community gov-
ernance includes problem-solving approach, de-centralisation, active participation
and high good will and image.
Institutions (CSR-community-global level)
The nature and type of institutions across corporate, community and global gover-
nance levels can either facilitate or destroy sustainable principles that is adopted in
the other four inner layers viz., convergence, innovate and transform, impactful and
saturation, trust worthy, value integration and holistic, collaborative, locally deter-
mined, local self-governance (micro-planning, NGO and local aspiration). Accord-
ingly, we need to understand the inconsistency and interdependent nature of five
variables viz. CSR policy signal, institutional responsibility, sustainable develop-
ment approach, new institutional architecture and emerging network, connection
and flow that facilitate collectivism at the local level.
Limitations and implications for future research
The present study is limited to identify and analyse the conduct of CSR perfor-
mances of Rourkela Steel Plant of SAIL on the range of activities only for
community development and sustainability. CSR initiative as a key driving force
to address gender issues and women empowerment requires further in-depth field
inquiry. The present research process has contributed to design an analytical
framework, which requires further experimentation and research. While the desired
direction of each of the variables of the analytical framework in Table 2 is well
understood, the present study has limitation to articulate and measure the perspec-
tives. Future research should also examine this conceptual framework in case of
Indian corporate houses elsewhere. The study was conducted in one location of a
public sector undertaking and limited to document CSR initiatives of the same. It
may also be interesting to see the depth and breadth of CSR initiatives, industry-
specific issues and inter-industry dynamics across organisations in primary, sec-
ondary and tertiary sectors and private sector undertaking.
Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the CSR team of RSP-SAIL to share their view points.
We are extremely grateful for the helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers and the editorial team of
Asian Journal of Business Ethics. My special thanks to my PhD supervisor Dr. Ragnhild Lund, NTNU,
Norway who has acquainted me in this area with the paper HS 44 on Rural Community Organization and
Development in MSc. in the year 1994 at AIT Bangkok.
Compliance with ethical standards
Ethical approval All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance
with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki
declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
The secondary source of information was obtained from the annual report, the SAIL, India of the years 2012–
2013/2014.
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Corporate Social Responsibility in Community Development and Sustainability: Rourkela Steel Plant, A Unit of SAIL, India

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Asian J Bus Ethics (2018) 7:53–79

Corporate social responsibility in community

Jyotirmayee Acharya 1 & S. N. Patnaik 2

Keywords Effective CSR . Community engagement . Sustainability . RSP-SAIL

Conceptual background and hypotheses development

In India, the empirical literature on the nature of corporate-initiated CSR is limited to

Rank Top 5 public companies Top 5 private companies

1 GAIL (India) Ltd. Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Source: Adopted from Majmudar et al. (2015)

multi-nationals in India that are considered to be the frontrunners in integrating social

Rank Company Rank Company Rank Company Rank Company

Source: Adopted from Majmudar et al. (2015)

CSR from a community development research perspective

H1: CSR project interventions towards community development and innovation

CSR from collective action perspective

H1.2: SAIL-RSP’s CSR interventions towards promotion of collective actions will

CSR from social capital perspectives

CSR from women empowerment perspective

H1.4: RSP-CSR project interventions towards women for livelihood promotion

Case of Rourkela Steel Plant—a unit of Steel Authority of India Limited

Corporate governance from social responsibility perspective

CSR towards peripheral development

H1.5: CSR project interventions towards peripheral development and environment

Description of the study area, data collection, and methods

Narrative inquiry in the subjective perception

The ethical value orientation of qualitative research is heavily dependent on re-

Result and discussions

CSR towards model steel villages

Table 3 Name of the 16 Model

Case of Chutiatola (hamlet) Kuarmunda Block

CSR towards access to clean water and sanitation

We observed that neighbouring communities’ spatiotemporal distribution of water

Case of Ushra resettlement colony of Kuarmunda Block

CSR towards income generation and livelihood promotion

Case of Laing resettlement colony of Rajgangpur Block

Laing resettlement colony belonging to Rajgangpur Block is dominant with Christian

looking after promotion of women SHG members’ income-generating activities. She is

CSR towards community education

CSR towards joint collaboration with Akshaya Patra Foundation

CSR towards community women empowerment

Table 4 Reach-out of the Akshaya Patra Foundation in India

No. Location No. of students

Source: AkshayaPatra Foundation’s annual report 2014

total of 40 Women Resource Centres (WRCs) has been established in 30 peripheral

CSR towards community health care

CSR towards community sports and culture

Conclusion and implication for sustainability

VARIABLES PERSPECTIVES VARIABLES

overcome the challenges to facilitate sustainability in livelihood system and ecol-

Livelihood and production system

1. Accessing to a wider ideas pool for start-up and flourish

Organisational design for community SSR

Community CSR governance

The analysis of efficiency principle, structural orientation, decision-making meth-

Institutions (CSR-community-global level)

Limitations and implications for future research

Compliance with ethical standards

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