Employment:

Mining needs a lot of dumpers and heavy earth moving equipments. To operate and run all these equipments, the company’s engineers give vocational training to local villagers who now operate our machines, crushing plants and dumpers. Some of the educated youth train for repairs and technical work for weekly maintenance.

Self employment:

Villagers with entrepreneurial skills run our fleet of 200 dumpers in a 'pay and own' scheme. Care is taken to identify those families who have more than four unemployed youth so that at least three dumpers may be given to that family. In case of a breakdown of any one truck, the others run to contribute to meet the instalment.

This scheme helps the bankers too because they are reluctant to finance local villagers. The trucks belong to the company till instalment is cleared. Every day performance is monitored and under-performing trucks are immediately noticed same day.

Drinking water:

We noticed that village homes are distant and there is no proper drinking water facility for these small clusters. The villagers would have to carry clothes up to ten kilometres away everyday for washing and bring back water in buckets for cooking. We started deploying one tankers two times in a day to nearby villages where they provide water to up to 200 villagers every day.

Water Hand pumps:

Every year we drill two or three holes to the ground water table with core drilling machine to provide for drinking water to villages. One bore-well hole with a hand pump is sufficient to cater to the household needs of two to three villages.

Dried Wells:

We noticed that the water levels go down during the dry season. Our geologists did a water study to ascertain if there is present water at a greater depth. We involved the local villagers to dig the well a further 20 feet down. This effort not only provided water but also minimum employment for three months for the community.

Medical Vans and Camps:

We have a medical van which is basically a 15 MT Truck converted into a small dispensary. It has a bed, a table for the doctor, water heating arrangement, a stretcher and few basic medical equipment like an oxygen cylinder. Since it is mobile it can go deep in the forest and do some basic tests, provide medication, even help in child birth, and take care of minor injuries. Since providing medication is a big responsibility, we have given the mobile dispensary to a NGO who operates in our mining area. We try and organise free medicine frequently. It helps to meet our accidental medication requirement for our workers and otherwise it attends to local villagers.

Electricity and Lights:

It is very easy to produce electricity through solar cells in India as we have abundance of bright sunlight throughout the year. Poles were erected in village center with solar cells on top which could provide basic light on all approach roads for the village. This is a one time cost and needs virtually no maintenance.

School & College:

We have adopted all the nearby schools with almost 1000 children. We send our social welfare team to assess the needs of each school. Some schools need a metal roof, due to water leakage in rainy season, or black boards, or books, proper school dresses, or better approach roads to schools, drinking water, shoes for children.

We do not give money for this project. We buy the requirement or use our man power or machines or try and involve local villagers to support our effort. Since we are headquartered in a metropolitan city, we request NGOs to organise used books, clothes and so on so that these can be sent to the mining region.

We have constructed one school and one college in the same province as our mines. The school imparts education from first to tenth standard to about 1200 students and is affiliated to the Central Board of Education of India.

Sports:

It is difficult for the government again to identify youth with potential in remote areas. We regularly organise football matches and prizes are given to youth with good performance. T-shirt with the company logo, football, shoes, refreshments are given by company for these matches. Till now we could not produce any state level player but we are sure we will be able to produce one in next two or three years.

Village Roads:

It is not possible for the government in developing countries to develop each and every road, especially village roads because there are many more pressing problems. Taurian has helped in its own way. Over-burden is first dumped to fill pot holes and a road grader and compactor is used to make it compact. It not only helps the local villagers but also reduces the cost of mining by reducing the breakdown of dumpers and increasing the trips per day for each vehicle.

Village Bridges:

There are few small streams near our mines which over flow during rainy season. There were few old wooden bridges which were dilapidated and dangerous for people to walk or drive over. Using the steel in our plant, our engineers designed a metal bridge by welding the unused steel ranging from 20 feet to 35 feet. These bridges were placed through our cranes on existing support making transportation easier and safer.