Piramal Foundation, a philanthropic arm of the Piramal Group, plans to establish four schools with a capacity to train and accommodate more than 1.50 lakh officials from state government and corporate social responsibility (CSR) annually at full capacity. These four schools include the School of Education, School of Health, School of Climate and Sustainability and the School of Inclusion. “With the PSL, we aim to train government officials at different managerial levels. Our initial efforts are concentrated on Rajasthan and we aim to build the leadership capacity not only in education but also in healthcare, climate and government officials at the middle levels,” Ajay Piramal, chairman, Piramal Group, told FE Education, adding that it also plans to introduce full-time courses in the future to further enhance skill development.
The division recently initiated a new education project called the Piramal School of Leadership (PSL) in Jaipur (Rajasthan). The foundation claims that this new school will be built on an area of 32 hectares of land and is expected to start operations by December 2025.
Further, the foundation claims that it has collaborated with state governments, particularly in sectors including education, women and children and health ministries. Additionally, it claims to have an employee strength of 5,000 people. The foundation claims to have worked with more than 11.3 crore people in the last 16 years. “While employment opportunities are certainly significant, our goal is to facilitate the professional development of government officials, enabling them to contribute more effectively to governance. The emphasis is on skill enhancement and creating a more capable and productive workforce,” he said.
Furthermore, the foundation claims that it has been running the Gandhi Fellowship and Karuna Fellowship programmes since 2008. The programmes include various projects including career guidance workshops, training of medical staff, teachers training, and children empowerment among others with a focus on rural areas. These programmes have about 1,495 pupils. The foundation claims that it has more than 2,200 alumni under both fellowships. “In years to come, our target is to offer 6,000 fellowships in both the programmes. The criteria for the Gandhi fellowship is that applicants should be less than 26 years old as of Oct 2, 2023. A graduate or final year student of UG/PG completed in July 2024 with an average of 55% in academics. For Karuna Fellowship, a 12th pass candidate between the age of 19 – 40 years old with a family income of less than Rs three lakh per year is eligible,” Natraj explained.