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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is important because it allows businesses to participate in initiatives or programs that promote social welfare and improvement, as defined by the Companies Act of 2013. Similarly, The Sona Group and its subsidiaries have provided invaluable assistance to the beleaguered community

CSR Activities of The Sona Group

The Sona Group is a premier business group that had its origin in the 1920s. The group has been successful in various fields including IT, textile, technology, education, skill development, and more. The Group had its founder, Karumuttu Thiagaraja Chettiar, wanting to empower the society and community of underprivileged people. With their various social activities through all the companies of The Sona Group, they have been assisting the needy in many ways. This article lists out some of the CSR activities the group had done in the past.

Kalvithanthai-Karumuttu-Thiagaraja-Chettiar

Covid Relief Program of The Sona Group

Covid-19 has devasted the normality of the world and affected many lives. Across the world organizations, governments, and individuals have helped their fellow beings. Similarly, The Sona Group and its companies have given their valuable support to the suffering community. Here are the lists of activities the group has done during these hard times:

Salem’s Sona College of Technology and Vee Technologies launched ‘Corona-Scan’ and ‘Corona-Support’ apps
Chocko Valliappa on behalf of the Textiles Association handed over 1,00,000 masks to our honorable Chief Minister, B. S. Yediyurappa
C. Valliappa Chairman of Sona College of Technology donated 1000 N95 respirators, 10,000 hand gloves, and 2,000 bottles of sanitizer, 500 ml each to Dharmapuri Medical College
Sona Management contributed grocery items (Rice-2000kg, Dhal -300kg, and Sanitizer - 50 bottles) towards the relief fund
Sona Group of Institutions, Mr. Thyagu Valliappa, donates thermal scanners worth Rs. 3,00,000 towards the relief fund
Vee Technologies employees contributed their one-day's salary towards the PM-CARES fund
Vice Chairmen, Mr. Chocko Valliappa and Mr. Thyagu Valliappa donated 200 steel cots, bedspreads, pillows, and bedsheets to Salem district covid infected persons
Mr. Valliappa, Mr. Chocko Valliappa & Mr. Thyagu Valliappa provided groceries worth Rs.1.75 lakhs for 100 temple priests as a COVID relief program
Mr. Valliappa, Mr. Chocko Valliappa & Mr. Thyagu Valliappa, on behalf of The Sona Group of Institutions, provided oxygen concentrators (worth 3 Lakhs, 10 liter's Size) to hospitals as a COVID relief program
Seetha Valliappa Knowledge Bank through Valliappa Foundation is providing loans with Zero percent Interest to students up to Rs. 45 Lakhs announced by Mr. Valliappa, Mr. Chocko Valliappa & Mr. Thyagu Valliappa
The Sona Group launched a vaccination drive in Salem on 12th June to protect the Salemites
The Sona group started to supply food through anadhanam.org to 1000+ COVID-19 patients at Salem Steel Plant COVID Care Centre and SONA COVID Care Center in Salem
On behalf of Valayapatti Nagarathar Sangam and The Sona Group of Institutions, Sona Valliappa has provided Oxygen concentrators, ECG machines, and other medical equipment to government hospitals
The Sona group started to supply food through anadhanam.org to 500 COVID-19 patients at Salem Steel Plant COVID Care Centre with a small pooja
TPT college and Sona Institutions made a social gesture and they have donated Rs 1 crore worth of nutritious food five times a day to COVID patients at Salem Steel Plant's Special Corona Treatment Centre.
Sona Group of Institutions, in association with Heartfulness Institute Salem Centre, distributed blankets for the needy people in the Cyclone affected area of Karaikkal and Cuddalore District
Chairman Mr. C. Valliappa, vice-chairman Mr. C. Chocko Valliappa, and the principal Mr. V. Karthikeyan met with the respectable Chief Minister and presented him with 36 lakhs
Vee Technologies had organized a vaccination drive for their employees

HireMee

HireMee is the social enterprise of Vee Technologies, started by Mr. Chocko Valliappa with a vision of companies finding the gem of talents from the small towns and villages of India. HireMee is a skill assessment tool for identifying the skill level of the students. Using the same corporates can select their suitable talents. The company is on a mission to complete 2 million assessments from over 7,000 institutions as an attempt to bring the hidden talents to the light.

The tool is a social enterprise with zero cost. With this platform in web and application, the students can assess their skills, showcase their scores, and add a 1-minute video resume for the companies to see. This allows the students to be within the reach of many companies with one assessment at no cost. The companies find the talents based on the scores.

The objectives of HireMee are to:

Help the students across India to find the right job
Support companies in finding the right talents
Help colleges to ensure better placement records.

Another product of HireMee is HireMee GOLD. HireMee GOLD is a career enhancement program that helps the students to learn their desired skills in a shorter period with a minimal charge. By taking a course the students would take a pre-course assessment, assessments in every module, and an end test. This helps the students and the companies to find the improvement of the students. The students get trained and become job-ready with the courses.

Sona Yukti

Sona Yukti, a skill development venture of The Sona Group, is a skill development and training platform to impart demand-driven and market-relevant courses to people. The objectives of Sona Yukti are

Sustainable conversion through education and skill development
Improving business productivity
Enhancing youth employability and entrepreneurship

Sona Yukti is a partner of Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA) through which they help rural India to be skilled at using digital applications and other employment areas. Sona Yukti has various CSR activities including:

Suryamitra - Free Solar Training Program

Sona Yukti has a free 3-month training program on Solar PV installation. This is the training program under the Suryamitra Skill Development Program sponsored by the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE). It helps the rural people with ITI / diplomas by providing free training with food and accommodation. All the participants are assured of job training and placements. The participants will receive a combined certificate from NSDC and Skill Council for Green Jobs.

At Jabalpur’s Oriental Institute of Science and Technology, Sona Yukti conducted a ‘Job Oriented Career Guidance and Skill Training Program’, where around 100 students were trained.

Kaam Kendra by Sona Yukti is an exclusive program that targets the unemployed youths from rural and urban areas, who discontinued their education in high school. The training programs last for 3 days to impart job skills. On completing the training successfully, the candidates are provided with placement assistance for 30 to 90 days, for which they have to pay a minimal charge.

Indo-Japan Technical Intern Training Program (TITP)- Japanese Language + Domain Training

The program is created to enhance the economic development of countries. Sona Yukti is a ‘Sending Organization’ that trains the students in the Japanese language. With a course from Sona Yukti, the students can intern in Japan.
Sona Yukti offers a 3-month paid medical coding training, which helps passing students with a 100% placement guarantee.

Thiagarajar Polytechnic (TPT) College

Thiagarajar Polytechnic College is established in 1958 by the philanthropist Sri. Karumuttu Thiagarajar. The college introduced and implemented the most innovative educational practices to provide excellent education to the students.

Some of them are listed:

Employer Centric Learning through Skype – this innovative practice gives students access to the industry experts while studying at college. Lectures are given by these experts from reputed industrial organizations and they showcase the real-time working in industries. This gives the students a taste of the industry scenario.
Life and Employability Skill Course – these courses help the students for real-life and interview performance.
TPT has signed MoU with various companies across fields that would help the students with exchange programs, industrial visits, training, and more.
Continuing Education Center – offers a range of short programs in Engineering & Technology with certificates offered by the State Project Co-ordination Unit, Directorate of Technical Education, Government of Tamil Nadu. Over 90,000+ students were benefitted from these courses.
Seetha Valliappa Knowledge Bank Loan offers INR 20,000 per year as an interest-free loan, which the students can repay after their diploma program.
Students are provided with a range of scholarship opportunities while studying.

Valliappa Foundation

The Valliappa Foundation has its aims to take quality education to the rural and underprivileged youth of the country, to better the socio-economic conditions, and to empower womenkind. The foundation is the vision of Kalaithanthai Karumuttu Thiagarajar. Now, the foundation is doing its part in various empowering areas through ventures and projects including:

Vee+ Svasa

Vee+ Svasa is a care for Covid-19 application developed by Vee Technologies and funded by Valliappa Foundation. The app provides a wealth of information on Covid-19 and offers self-treating tips from John Hopkins Medical University, US. This helps people to treat mild infections at home by themselves.

Medical Coding Training

Valliappa Foundation, in collaboration with Tech Mahindra Foundation, equips Medical Coding Training with placement assessment. With the training, the candidates are placed at various reputed organizations. Through the training we strive to improve the socio-economic conditions of the underprivileged. Out of 207 candidates trained, 151 candidates got placed, which is 73% of the total trained candidates.

Scholarships for Students

The foundation has granted scholarships to over 100 students. Under various categories (like physically challenged, whose parent's income is below 2,00,000/- lakhs per year, wards of deceased/serving defense personnel/ex-servicemen, and based on performance in NSS, NCC, YRC, and RRC) B.E./ B. Tech students are awarded scholarships for their studies.

AgriBPO

AgriBPO from Sona College of Technology is a funded project from the Department of Science and Technology under SEED – Science for Equity Empowerment and Development. This project is to promote the entrepreneurship and development of Women Self Help Groups (SHG) in Salem, Tamil Nadu.

NTPC Training

NTPC is an independent power producer. To strengthen the core business, NTPC has diversified into the fields of consultancy, power trading, training of power professionals, rural electrification, ash utilization, and coal mining as well. Through Sona Yukti, a part of the Valliappa Foundation, around 1,200 candidates were trained in NTPC.

School Development Program

Valliappa Foundation, as per its aim, has developed many primary schools in and near Bangalore and some of the villages. In this program, 25 Government schools were developed. Some of the activities included were providing digital literacy to the students, training teachers to improve the quality of teaching, and improving cultural and scientific activities in those schools.

Centre for Social Responsibility Initiatives

The objective of this program is to empower the community of people who needs assistance. This program offers vocational training and development in Employability Skills and Entrepreneurship Initiatives like construction, garment making, art and craft, beauty culture & hairdressing, ICT, media, soft and entrepreneurial skills, hospitality, housekeeping, and more.

Anadhanam

Anadhanam is a digital platform that connects hunger hotspots to food surplus areas. It is a food redistributing venture that moves the excess food to the hungry. There are 820 million people hungry today in the world. Anadhanam tries to do its share in preventing hunger of a few. Anadhanam has served 1,900 beneficiaries till now. The platform helps NGOs to connect with other NGOs and with other hunger hotspots.

Vee Trace

Vee Trace is a contact tracing app that forewarns when a covid infected individual is in the area. The app was successfully launched in Salem Municipal Corporation. This simple app requires only the name and contact details. The higher the number of users the better the efficiency of the app, as the app uses the information provided by the users.

Women Technology Park (WTP)

Sona College of Technology has received funding from the Department of Science and Technology's Science for Equity, Empowerment, and Development (SEED) Division. The fund is to train rural women by establishing Rural Women Technology Park (WTP) in Salem. The value of the project is approximately Rs. 1,30,00,000/- (one crore thirty lakhs).

Some of the programs for rural women under the project are:

Pulse Plating of Silver Anklet
Sewing Machine for Differently abled Women
Development of Paver Blocks
Wastepaper Recycling
Solar Food Processing

The Sona Group has done various activities to improve the conditions of the society and some of them are listed in this article.