SPEECH BY SHRI NITIN GADKARI AT THE 12TH NATIONAL CSR SUMMIT 2025
First of all, I would like to congratulate everyone on this 12th National Corporate Social Responsibility Summit. This is a law that has been very helpful in changing the socio-economic picture of our country for the past many years. It is a part and parcel of society; what we earn from our society, we should return to it, which was the basic principle of this law. We have a song called “Chalo jalaye deep waha abhi abhi andhera hai.” There are many sectors in our society where people are socially, economically, and educationally backwards. We can change their lives with our positive efforts.
I have been working in the social sector for the past 35-40 years. Positive constructive work does not get the same amount of recognition and publicity as political activities. I remember that this work has changed the lives of many people. Even though I am the road transport minister, 80% of my work is dedicated to the rural agricultural sector.
I am not a great scholar, but I have received 13 doctorates, out of which 6 are in agriculture. The region I come from in Nagpur has a different history; 10,000 farmers have committed suicide in the past few years, and the reason for the suicides is a lack of water. States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh do not face this problem because the rivers have sufficient water. But the problem of insufficient water in our region is serious.
The CSR funds for water conservation have been helpful, and I have an NGO that has been working for the past 10 years. The concept is very simple: “daudne wale pani ko chalne ke liye lagao, chalne wale pani ko rukne ke liye lagao, aur ruke hue pani ko jameen ko peene ke liye lagao.”
“Gaon ka pani gaon mei, khet ka pani khet mei, aur ghar ka pani ghar mei.” When I became the minister of the road ministry, we needed aggregate for building roads. We used the aggregate from ponds and irrigation dams to make roads, and we did this free of charge. I made 36 ponds at the University of Agriculture in Akola. The work through Corporate Social Responsibility holds importance in the social sector.
The car, which I use, is a Toyota Innova. It is the first car in the world that runs on 100% bio-ethanol, which is made by our farmers. I urge social-economic audit of the projects under CSR. The people who work on these projects should be graded. Grading will help in building success stories on a bigger level. The CSR holds great importance, but rural agriculture and tribal based work, especially in the field of water, land, forest and animal-based work, is more important.
We need to reach the last man in society and work on his skill development, and make him independent. The CSR activities not only contribute to the socio-economic transformation in the present but also help the future.