From correspondents in Delhi, India, 09:52 PM IST

Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT), India’s largest paper manufacturer and part of the over $3 billion Avantha Group, was conferred the prestigious TERI Corporate Award for Business Response to HIV/AIDS at a function held in New Delhi today. The award was presented by Mr. Kamal Nath, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry to Mr. Rajiv Vederah, Managing Director, BILT.

Organized by The Energy and Research Institute (TERI), in association with German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the award acknowledges the efforts of companies that have successfully launched and executed HIV/AIDS intervention programmes at their workplace, community or supply chain. The award also seeks to mainstream the private sector in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The initiatives of all winners, including BILT, will be subsequently published by TERI in a special compendium titled “Best practices for HIV/AIDS interventions in the Indian Industry.”

Mr. R.R. Vederah, Managing Director, BILT, said, “BILT has a well-defined HIV/AIDS prevention programme that has reached out to over 40,000 people. We are thankful to TERI for recognizing our efforts, and we hope these awards will encourage more private participation in HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives.”

Ms. Yashashree Gurjar, Chief General Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility for BILT said, “We are grateful to TERI and GTZ for this honour. At BILT, we have implemented a comprehensive HIV/AIDS programme that covers employees, casual workers, truckers and transporters as well as communities living around our six manufacturing locations across the country. Besides generating awareness, we are proactively involved in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. BILT runs an anti-retroviral treatment (ART) centre at Ballarpur, Maharashtra, in collaboration with the State Government. This is the first such public-private partnership in the state. We also have another ART centre coming up later this year at our unit in Sewa, Orissa.”

In the past BILT has won several awards and accolades for its CSR initiatives. These include the national level TERI Award for CSR (2003-04), the national level Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) Award (2005-06), Businessworld FICCI-SEDF CSR Award (2005-06), Asian CSR Award (2005-06), the Golden Peacock Global Award for CSR in Emerging Economies (2007), and the Intel - AIM Corporate Responsibility Award (2007).

Source: Press Release Distribution via India PRwire