Ashok Leyland Foundation, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm of auto major Ashok Leyland Ltd, plans to expand its education initiatives to reach nearly one million students across India by 2029. The foundation will also be increasing its annual CSR expenditure to ₹60 crore. Currently, the average spending is around ₹40 crore per year.
“In the last ten years over ₹210 crore has been spent,” the foundation’s director N.V. Balachander said. He also said that the foundation would scale up its flagship programmes — Road to School (RTS) and Road to Livelihood (RTL) to more States, including Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
T. Sasikumar, Chief Operating Officer – Ashok Leyland Foundation said that these programmes are constantly monitored and reviewed and impact studies are presented to the board. To a query on whether any initiatives have been taken for teachers, Mr. Sasikumar said, “We are working on teacher capacity building.”
Girish, Project Director, Learning Links Foundation spoke about success stories from these initiatives. The team cited an example of how the RTS programme was successful in Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal district. At Kolli Hills, nearly 95 per cent of the 40,000 residents belong to Scheduled Tribes. Scattered across 273 settlements with no colleges, poor healthcare and difficult terrain, children here faced significant barriers to schooling.
Published – June 24, 2026 05:30 am IST
