Rolls-Royce school celebrates Tsunami recovery in India

Rolls-Royce, a world-leading provider of power systems and services for air, land and sea, today officially opened a school it has helped rebuild in India following the December 2004 tsunami.

The new Pallayar Government Middle School is in the state of Tamil Nadu, which was the worst–affected area of the Indian mainland during the tsunami. Ninety per cent of the coastal village of Pallayar in the Nagapattinam district was destroyed.

The government is rebuilding the village on a new site further away from the coast and Rolls-Royce entered into partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to support tsunami rehabilitation by helping to rebuild the school.

Pallayar is located close to the Rolls-Royce power installations of Saheli, Vaigai, Kaveri and M M Steel, and Rolls-Royce managers took a keen interest in monitoring the progress of construction work.

The inauguration was conducted by Thangam Thennarasu, Minister for School Education, Government of Tamil Nadu and was attended by district officials, employees of Rolls-Royce, CII and more than 300 children from the school and neighbouring villages.

Premangshu Sanyal, Director of Rolls-Royce Energy Systems India pvt Ltd, said: “We were deeply disturbed by the tsunami devastation in a region where we operate and have power plant installations. The company and its employees wanted to contribute to restoring some of the lost infrastructure by supporting the Pallayar School project.”

”Now complete, the school will provide education to children from six to seven villages located in and around the area. Its library room and classrooms already have 150 students and the number will grow rapidly in the coming months.”

Martin Brodie, Head of Communications – Asia and Middle East said: “Rolls-Royce employees around the world contributed to a relief fund after the tsunami and the new school is one of a number of projects the company has funded in the affected countries.”

“Today’s inauguration marks the completion of our commitment to the district authorities and to ourselves in the aftermath of the tsunami. It’s also a great privilege to be able to share in the revival of Pallayar with local residents.”

Mr N Kumar, Chairman Task Force of the Confederation of Indian Industry said: “This project has been a good example of how industry can work with a local community in times of hardship. We are extremely grateful to Rolls-Royce for the contributions made by its employees to make this project successful”.

Following the tsunami, Rolls-Royce also funded vital equipment to help restore power supplies to outlying areas in the Nicobar and Andaman Islands and a separate contribution bought two motor boats and a jeep for the Port Blair Electricity Company.

Previously, Rolls-Royce has also raised money, along with the Rotary Club of Kochi, to build a school for disadvantaged children in Kochi.