New CTC firm for CSR work

By Tharindri Rupesinghe

Ceylon Tobacco Company PLC said this week it has registered a new company called CTC Corporate Social Responsibility Projects (Guaranteed) Ltd to handle its CSR projects. The company will be operating under its parent CTC, but will be individually operating CTC’s current long-term CSR’s as well as any future projects.

Presently CTC is involved in two main CSR projects -- a sustainable agricultural development programme for non-tobacco farmers and a bio-diversity programme to develop a Eucalyptus plantation in Naulla into a natural forest. “These projects would take close two or two and a half years to complete and we want to give them our full attention,” Dinesh Dharmadasa, Director- Corporate and Regulatory Affair told The Sunday Times FT.

The directors of the new company are CTC’s current CEO and its Finance Director. While the CSR unit will make operations far easier for CTC, Dharmadasa explained that it would also pave the way to the likes of multi-national organizations contributing to the programmes, since dealings with a separate company would be easier and more transparent.