Cadila Pharma organizes Sarpanch Sammelan

Ahmedabad, October 12: Pharma major Cadila Pharmaceuticals hosted a Sarpanch Sammelan at its headquarters in Bhat village on Saturday with an objective to make village heads aware of various government schemes that can contribute to development of villages. The participants were also informed about Cadila Pharma’s Comprehensive Rural Development Program which enables sarpanches to bring modern amenities to their village.

Ahmedabad DDO Arun Mahesh Babu, BJP President, Daskroi Taluka, Rajubhai Patel, Mr B. B. Sadhu, TDO Dholka and B. S. Lasaniya, TDO Daskroi were among the dignitaries present.

The Sarpanch Sammelan was organized in association with Know Your Rights Foundation. The workshop focused on making the attendees aware of different government schemes for village and rural development.

Himanshu Patel, sarpanch of Punsari village, who has been recognized by the state government for exemplary development work through implementation of various government schemes to make Punsari a model village, was the guest speaker at the workshop.

Sharing his learnings and experiences with the participating sarpanches, Himanshu Patel said, “The sarpanches have an important role to play in development of villages. They should educate themselves about their basic duties, responsibilities, rights, and powers. They should also be fully aware of government schemes for education, health, nutrition, cleanliness, road projects, etc. and implement them for all-round development of their village.”

Speaking on the occasion, Ahmedabad DDO Arun Mahesh Babu, said, “The central and state governments have launched several initiatives for development of villages. The governments sitting in Delhi or Gandhinagar can provide funds, but it is for the residents to decide how to use the funds based on the village’s priorities and requirements. This is why sarpanches have a very important role to play. Like Himanshu bhai Patel and other sarpanches have shown, the state of villages can be completely transformed if government schemes are properly implemented.”

In his address, Mr. BV Suresh, President – CSR, Cadila Pharma, said “We realized that the government is running many useful schemes to develop villages, but there is a general lack of awareness about how to derive maximum benefits from the schemes. This workshop was aimed to bring sarpanches together and to provide guidance to them so that the government schemes can be utilized to the full.”

More than 80 Sarpanch attended the event and interacted in the workshop. The workshop was the first of many that Cadila Pharma plans to organize in clusters in Dholka and Daskroi talukas of Ahmedabad. The company aims to educate the clusters for six months and help them avail benefits of government schemes. Cadila Pharma said that the program aims to contribute to uplift of villages and to help more of them emerge as model villages.

As a responsible corporate, Cadila Pharma accords top priority to its CSR activities. It funded a library in Bhat village recently. As a part of its World Environment Day pledge to plant 1 lakh saplings at its manufacturing plants in 1,000 days, it has already planted around 50,000 saplings. The pharma major also organized a self-help group for women of Bhat to help them make a livelihood for themselves through stitching. In addition, it regularly conducts health camps, cleanliness drives, women empowerment programs, children education session etc. in villages.

Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd. is one of the largest privately held pharmaceutical companies. Over the past six decades, it has been developing and manufacturing affordable medicines for patients around the world. It aims to be a sustainable and a caring organization believing in helping the society grow with us.