CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS THE WORKERS IN TEA INDUSTRY OF ASSAM ? A CASE STUDY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THREE COMPANY BASED INDUSTRY

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) defined as “the ethical behavior of a company towards the society,” manifests itself in the form of such noble programs initiated by for-profit organizations. CSR has become increasingly prominent in the Indian corporate scenario because organizations have realized that besides growing their businesses, it is also vital to build trustworthy and sustainable relationships with the community at large. This is one of the key drivers of CSR programs. Though India is one of the fastest growing economies, socio-economic problems like poverty, illiteracy, lack of healthcare etc. are still ubiquitous and the government has limited resources to tackle these challenges. This scenario has opened up several areas for businesses to contribute towards social development. Companies have CSR teams that devise specific policies, strategies and goals for their CSR programs and set aside budgets to support them. Corporate Social Responsibility means the way in which business firms integrate environmental, economic and social concerns into their culture, values, strategy, decision making and operations in an accountable and transparent manner and therefore, leading to better creation of wealth, an improved society and better practices in the business organization. The research study has been undertaken by selecting three tea estates of Jorhat District of Assam, out of the total tea estates 135(Annual Report2013, Published tea Board of India). These tea estates are considered only Company based, tea estates for the study. This paper is about how Tea Industry performs their Social Responsibility towards their workers. Research is based on the three Tea Gardens industry i.e. how they fulfill their task towards the benefit of Society. In this paper, an attempt has been made to highlights how the companies based tea industries have introduced many workers welfare activities, social development programmes, better working conditions, provide better medical and sanitation facilities, sports and cultural activities in order to improve their standard of living of employees.