HDFC Bank bets on cluster-focused approach in Kashmir to build sustainable CSR projects

HDFC Bank is trying out a cluster-focused approach in Kashmir to ensure the long-term sustainability of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives among farming communities, even after individual projects complete their government-mandated three-year tenure.

Under this strategy, new projects undertaken by implementation partners of the Bank’s CSR programme, ‘Parivartan’, will continue to be standalone interventions, each with defined financial outlays and outcome projections. However, they will be designed to complement and gain from earlier CSR initiatives and collectively strengthen the region’s agricultural ecosystem.

The Bank started its CSR initiative in Kashmir in 2022 when it began to support farmers in a couple of villages and farmer producer organizations (FPOs) formed by them through its implementation partners such as ISAP India Foundation.

Under ‘Parivartan’ programme, these farmers and their FPOs received assistance to improve their farming practices, post-harvesting interventions, market access, etc. The support included supply of solar water pumps, drip irrigation, grading cleaning and processing facilities for apples, solar dryers, cold storage facilities and other relevant machinery to enable better post-harvest handling, preservation and processing of local produce. The initiative also saw the birth of a brand ‘Samarkash’, under which participating FPOs collectively market processed agricultural products.

“Our support goes much more than providing a solar dryer or a grading machine. We are supporting in terms of the manpower required by the organization to build the capacities, to talk to the farmer, to bring them together. The project, the programme is not limited to just giving assets. The programme is where you have knowledge sharing, capacity building. We ensure ISAP appoints coordinators for the region, managers who are handling these different FPOs, handholding them, teaching them on book keeping, techniques, so that the entire value chain, whatever is required in terms of assets, managing the assets, the manpower required, all of that is part of the project which the Bank works with ISAP," Nusrat Pathan, Head – CSR, HDFC Bank, says.

By the time the three-year term of these CSR projects ended in 2025, the Bank had already started its next set of CSR initiatives in 2024 within the same region in nearby villages, this time saffron farmers along with apple and walnut farmers. While these interventions are different projects, they feed into each other. For example, “if they are drying vegetables in Pulwama (part of new CSR project), these FPOs (strengthened through the previous CSR project) are buying from them. They are interconnected and we are looking at a holistic approach from pre-harvest to post-harvest. We are looking an end- to-end cycle support”, says an ISAP functionary.

The continued connection with the FPOs and the newer products that get added into the ‘Samarkash’ portfolio is thus strengthening the agricultural livelihoods of the region beyond the three-year period. “That is the way we approach our programmes because while we are saying that the project is technically closed, the hand holding continues. We are working with the groups that are associated (with each other). We know sustainability cannot be achieved in three years. So we are trying to do it in different clusters so that we can actually build the organization. That is a very planned approach,” Pathan says.

The FPOs that have received the support under Parivartan initiative collectively generate revenues of up to Rs 5.2 crore, the Bank points out.

The key interventions under Parivartan to support saffron cultivation in Pampore include providing a solar water pump and solar dryer, alongside FPO development and market linkages. In the case of apple and walnut processing, the intervention provides processing infrastructure such as solar dryers, and other machinery to improve post-harvest management such as grading and sorting. Similarly, farmers in Uri are being supported through polyhouse farming, drip irrigation and solar drying facilities, helping improve cultivation and post-harvest handling of Kashmiri red chilli.

Beyond agriculture, and beyond Kashmir, Parivartan supports alternative livelihood opportunities, including women’s skilling initiatives. In FY 2025–26, HDFC Bank extended its CSR coverage to 498 border villages across India, in line with national priorities under the Border Area Development Programme and the Vibrant Villages Programme.

The HDFC Bank’s CSR programme has impacted over 10.77 crore lives to date, across all 28 States and 8 Union Territories. It spent Rs 1,316.18 crore on CSR initiatives in FY25–26, taking its cumulative CSR investment under Parivartan to approximately Rs 7,492 crore since inception. Its work spans six focus areas: rural development, promotion of education, skill training and livelihood enhancement, healthcare and hygiene, financial literacy and inclusion, and natural resource management.