Nokia expands its CSR efforts in Jammu & Kashmir

Jammu/New Delhi — Nokia Monday announced an expansion of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts in Jammu and Kashmir. The company has opened 24 new ‘Smartpur’ centers in various panchayat jurisdictions in the districts of Samba and Anantnag, 18 and six respectively.

Smartpur is a digital village ecosystem project aimed at integrating technology into the daily lives of people living in remote villages. Using digital connectivity technology, the project intends to empower licensed local entrepreneurs and provide them with facilities to make services accessible at the village level through Panchayat-level Smartpur centers. The initiative connects people with the five essential pillars of development — education, health, livelihood, governance and financial inclusion, enabling villages to be more sustainable and self-reliant.

Nokia Smartpur centre at Palli, Samba

Nokia India’s flagship social impact program, Smartpur, was designed with sustainability, scalability, replicability and largescale impact in mind. Within the last year, Nokia has expanded the project to 90 more villages increasing the number of Smartpur centers to 350 villages across India. These villages are spread across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.  At the same time, around 30 Smartpur centres in Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have become self-sustaining in same period.

Nokia’s Smartpur program is implemented by two nonprofit partners, namely Save the Children and Digital Empowerment Foundation. In recognition of its social initiatives in India, Nokia was awarded the Bharti Foundation’s Silver Award last year.

Nokia Smartpur centre at Palli, Samba

In April 2022, Nokia and implementing partner Save the Children India (Bal Raksha Bharat) established a Smartpur centre in the Palli region to provide services across all of its five pillars of development. The centre was also visited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was impressed by the work undertaken and provided his valuable suggestions for further strengthening the program and establishing linkages with Government initiatives.

Lt. Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha inaugurates the new Smartpur centres

“As part of our larger commitment to local communities, we are facilitating connectivity and digitization to further positive socio-economic, educational and health impacts in India by leveraging core strengths to address the urgent needs of the underprivileged populations. We derive great pride from the fact that we have been able to keep our promise and scale up from one to twenty-five Smartpur centres in Jammu and Kashmir in a year. We are thankful to the local administration for all their assistance and encouragement,” said Nokia India Marketing and Corporate Affairs Head Amit Marwah.

Jammu and Kashmir Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha acknowledged the potential of the Smartpur program. He expressed hope that the company would be able to establish at least two such centers in the remaining districts of the union territory.