HIGH ON ASH: NTPC's coal-fired plants produce 40,000 MT of fly ash a day, all of which is recycled as building materal (Pic by Tribhuwan Sharma) Our village, Rani Bari, was relocated twice to make way for two different phases of NTPC's power projects,' says Tej Pratap Mishra, a 45-year-old traditional agriculturist who is now an employee of the thermal power major. Rani Bari is a hamlet near the NTPC Singrauli project in Madhya Pradesh. "It is painful to be moved and to have your land and house taken away. But when we look back, it has been better for our children and for our health.' The sentiments are echoed, albeit in different words, by hundreds of beneficiaries across 23 projects of NTPC's 65 CSR initiatives in the areas of health, environment, development of the girl child, and education. More than 200 villages and over 2,500 people have benefited from NTPC's CSR activities. "I got my job because of the training and technical skills I received from ITI (Indian Technical Institute), thanks to NTPC,' says 35-year-old Umrish Singh of Khangora village in Uttar Pradesh. "I am successfully employed in the DENSO Company. Many of my friends have got jobs in big companies because NTPC gave us training.' The company is also contributing significantly to the Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutikaran Scheme in partnership with the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC). NTPC's target of electrifying 40,000 villages by 2020 is in varying stages of implementation. The thermal power major now plans to institutionalise CSR activities in four joint venture companies. However, the Rs 36 crore that NTPC spent on CSR initiatives in 2007-08 is a mere 0.5 per cent of the power major's Rs 7,129 crore net profit for that period. Business Community Foundation (BCF), a CSR-focussed NGO, suggests 3-5 per cent profit commitments to CSR activities. "There is nothing sacrosanct about the 0.5 per cent