TCS pledges Rs 100 crore for PM's Clean India initiative

Country's largest software services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) today said it has pledged Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) toward financing hygienic sanitation facilities for girl students across 10,000 schools.

TCS will earmark a budget of Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) to be spent on this initiative, which will help children, especially girl students, to participate in school education for a longer period of time and play a larger economic role in their communities, TCS said in a statement.

"We firmly believe that achieving the mission of providing hygienic sanitation for girl students will have a tangible impact on the level of education achievement and development of India's next generation," TCS CEO and Managing Director N Chandrasekaran said.

Emphasising on the 'dignity of women', Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked parliamentarians and corporate sector to help build separate toilets for girls in schools across the country by next year.

"I want to start one work from today. There should be a toilet in all the schools of our country.

A separate toilet for girls...it is only then our girls will not have to quit schools," he had said during his Independence Day address to the nation.

He added that the corporate sector should give priority to building toilets in schools as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives.