All these programmes are implemented around our production sites situated in rural hinterlands or semi-urban locations. The objectives of these programmes are either to provide livelihood opportunities to household members or increase their chances of employability either through skills training or better education. These initiatives promote sustainability in the following ways:

1. The employment generation interventions provide supplementary incomes to poor households, thus improving their financial sustainability;

2. The skills and education programme prepare youngsters to enter the labour market as qualified candidates with better chances of securing employment; and

3. For us, these interventions improve social relations thus enabling our factories to operate in harmony with the local society.

Economic Empowerment of Women
Promotion of micro-credit groups is only the first step towards the economic empowerment of women. Mature SHGs are linked with micro-enterprises like incense stick rolling and embroidery to provide diversified sources of income for poor rural households. Moreover, increased incomes in the hands of women go towards better education and health for their children, thus improving human development in the project areas.

Primary Education

In line with the Government’s concern for universalisation of primary education in India, our supplementary learning centres provided extra coaching to thousands of primary school goers from poor families. In order to increase enrolment, poor children receive school uniforms and text/exercise books. A network of rural libraries and resource centres enrich the process of learning for these children. State-run schools are made more attractive for children through infrastructure support, comprising mainly of benches and chairs.

State-run schools are made more attractive for children through infrastructure support from ITC.

Activites	Unit	Cumulative to 2005-06	2006-07	Total To date
Supplementary Learning Centres
Centres	No.	566	523	1089
Students	No.	47,190	23,980	71,170
School Infrastructure	Govt. Schools	39	81	120
Libraries	No.	52	64	116
Roaming Laptop	Govt. Schools		35	35
Text/Exercise Books	No. of Students	16,971	33,289	50,260
Uniforms	No. of Students	4,966	500	5,466
Cultural & Sports events	No.	881	55	936

Primary Health & Sanitation
Poor hygienic conditions are the main cause of high morbidity, especially amongst at-risk women and young children. Low cost sanitary toilets improve hygiene in villages while back yard horticulture provide nutritional supplements. Our health camps address the curative needs of villagers.

Activites	Cumulative to 2005-06	2006-07	Total To date
No. of Toilets	1,691	471	2,162
No. of Saplings	10,554	11,060	21,614
No, of Drip Kits	29	151	180
Awareness/ Health camps	116	92	208
No. of patients	12,290	3,497	15,787

Prevention of Corruption at Workplace
We believe that corporations like ours have a responsibility to set exemplary standards of ethical behaviour, both within the organisation as well as in their external relationships. We believe that unethical behaviour corrupts organisational culture and undermines shareholder value.

A booklet on ITC’s Code of Conduct, which also contains the policy against corruption is periodically circulated to all managers. In addition, it is posted on the corporate intranet sites and the ITC Portal. The Audit Committee of the Board met nine times during the year to review, inter alia, the adequacy and effectiveness of the internal controls and monitored implementation of internal audit recommendations, including those relating to strengthening of the Company’s risk management policies and systems.

Instances of corruption involving employees or business partners were cognised for and suitable action was taken. ITC has a zero-tolerance approach to proven cases of corruption, resulting in immediate termination of service.

Public Policy Advocacy
Our senior managers not only participated in a large number of industry fora to help contribute to debates on public policy and issues related to our businesses, but have also established a number of institutions - namely the Tobacco Institute of India and the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development - to promote public debate and shape policies on important issues concerning industry and the nation.

The Tobacco Institute of India is a tobacco industry body, which helps support industry norms and Government policy initiatives.

The CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development was set up by ITC in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry to promote a movement on corporate sustainability in India and policy advocacy.

Compliance
All our businesses/divisions have systems and procedures to identify and comply with all relevant statutory requirements. There was no non-compliance with laws or regulations by any of our businesses in 2006-07.