CSR 3

CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Catalyst
EDITORIAL TEAM
Dr. Bhamy V. Shenoy
Chief Editor
chiefeditor@afhd.org
FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Ms. Bharati Kalasapudi

An insight into the complex Mr. Nasy Sankagiri
Ms. Aarti Iyer
problems of development and an Mr. Lakshman Kalasapudi
attempt to provide solutions Ms. Padmaja Ayyagari
Mr. Rajesh Satyavolu

Dr. Srinivasa Rao (Editor)

editor@afhd.org

MISSION
Advisory Board
Dr. Thomas Abraham
Dr. Nirupam Bajpai
To present people, ideas, news and views periodically to Dr. Suri Sehgal
readers to promote networking among NGOs; Mr. M. Chittaranjan
Dr. Rao V.B.J. Chelikani
To publish peer reviewed professional articles on the NGO movement
that can promote sustainable development and best practices; Editorial Board
Dr. Abraham George
To disseminate information on the NGO movement to improve amgeorge@optonline.net
communication that can, in turn, catalyze human development;
Dr. Ratnam Chitturi
To provide a platform for all concerned with sustainable chitturi@mail.org
development to catalyze the process of human development.
Mr. Anil Chug
marketlinksusa@yahoo.com

Mr. Ram Krishnan

rkrishnan46@yahoo.com

Published by: Mr. Balbir Mathur

Balbir@TreesforLife.org
Dr. Vasundhara D. Kalasapudi
Bharati Seva Sadan Mr. Yogi Patel
Srinivasanagar Colony yogi@prathamusa.org
Saluru- 535 591
Vizianagaram District, A.P., India Dr. Raj Rajaram
raj2468@comcast.net

Dr. Viral Acharya

Contact: vacharya@london.edu

USA Ms. Volga

INDIA asmitacollective@sancharnet.in
Dr. Rao V.B.J. Chelikani Dr. Srinivasa Rao
INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR ASSOCIATION FOR HUMAN Disclaimer
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT (IFHD) DEVELOPMENT (AFHD) Catalyst for Human Development,
Balaji Residency, 12-13-705/10/AB 208, Parkway Drive, Roslyn Heights its Staff or Editor assume no
Gokulnagar, Tarnaka New York,11577, USA responsibility, directly or indirectly,
Hyderabad - 500 017, A.P., India E-mail: editor@afhd.org for the views and opinions
expressed by the authors as well as
for the pictures used in the articles.
Any omission of reference to
For all communication please contact: material from the Internet or other
info@afhd.org sources is unintentional.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Catalyst
FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

conveys its thanks to

Media India for helping in the editorial production of all articles
published herein and in the overall assistance of review and
design services as well as printing of the Sixth issue.

Editorial Coordination by P.S. Sundaram

Former Editor, The New Indian Express & Managing Editor, Media India

Editorial Team:
P.S. Sundaram pssundaram@mediaindia.org
P.R.K. Prasad prkprasad@mediaindia.org
S. Udayini udayinis@mediaindia.org
P. Charitha charitha@mediaindia.org
Cover & Layout Design:
Venkat, Murthy & Veeru

Contact:
MEDIA INDIA,103, Patel’s Avenue, Lane adjacent to Sierra Atlantic , Road No 10, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad 500 034.
Mail: info@mediaindia.org Phone: 91-40-2333 1212/1313 Fax: 91-40-2333 1414

Printed at: SVPCL Ltd., 206 A, Concourse, Greenlands Road, Hyderabad - 500 016, A.P., India

North India Contact:

E-13, Anand Niketan, New Delhi-110021, India
Ph: 91-11- 65422890, 91-9868471506
E-mail: arvind.bhatta@responsenet.org
support@responsenet.org, Website: www.responsenet.org

INVITATION TO AUTHORS
Catalyst For Human Development provides a platform for those people who have a concern for sustainable
human development. The mission of this magazine is to disseminate information on the NGO movement and
publish well-documented features and articles produced by highly qualified professionals, on various issues related
to human development activity in India. The topics range from healthcare, sanitation, agriculture and housing to
transportation, employment, energy, water, women and child welfare, financial matters, rural development,
ecology and activities of NGOs.
We invite contributors to enhance the value of the magazine and make it more purposeful - all to promote the
cause of the global NGO movement.
Guidelines for Contributions
Article 1200-1500 words (approximately two or three printed pages)
Format Double-spaced, 1 inch margin, 12 pt. text and soft copy in MS Word
Artwork The two or three images (to accompany your article) should be of high
resolution (300 dpi). Try to provide captions for the artwork, as needed
Author Bio 50-80 words
Author Photo Bust shot (high resolution) in JPEG, TIFF or BMP format
Send in your contributions to editor@afhd.org along with your postal address
TITLE PAGES AND HIGHLIGHTS OF FIRST FIVE ISSUES OF Catalyst
FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

HIGHLIGHTS OF JANUARY '06 ISSUE

Scalingup Primary Education Services in Rural India

Healthcare in India

Water Management in 21st Century - Policy and Planning

Food and Nutrition Through Value Addition to Agri Resources

Scaling up Primary Health Services in Rural India

Cross-Fertilization Needed Between Universities & Scientific Labs

Balasakhi - A Village Voice

NRI Pioneers - Catalytic Agents for Development

HIGHLIGHTS OF APRIL '06 ISSUE

Agenda For the Nation: An Approach

Economic Reforms in India - The Unfinished Agenda

A Villager's Agenda For a Healthy India

Consumer Movement - An Agenda

India's Development - Agenda for NRIs

Stop Child Poverty

Could Our Classrooms Shape India's Destiny

Unscrupulous NGOs are Denting Movement

HIGHLIGHTS OF OCTOBER '06 ISSUE

Scaling up Primary Education Services in Rural India

Healthcare in India

Water Management in 21st Century - Policy and Planning

Food and Nutrition Through Value Addition to Agri Resources

Scaling up Primary Health Services in Rural India

Cross-Fertilization Needed Between Universities & Scientific Labs

Balasakhi - A Village Voice

NRI Pioneers - Catalytic Agents for Development

HIGHLIGHTS OF JANUARY '07 ISSUE

Non-Resident Indians' contributions - Answering a Call to Action

Eliminating Elephantiasis and Waterborne Diseases

Association for India's Development - Improving Literacy in Rural India

Leading India toward Millennium Development Goals

How NRIs Can Help in Poverty Alleviation

Is Mega Philanthropy Going to Make a Difference?

Nobel Peace Prize 2006 - Muhammad Yunus

Indian National Development Congress

HIGHLIGHTS OF MARCH '07 ISSUE

Safe Drinking Water in Villages: A Step Towards Rural Transformation

Water Wars: National Problems from a Regional Perspective

Rain Centre in Chennai, India

Get real, Coke: Water Rights Protest

Promoting Effective Waste Management: The Clean Himalaya Initiative

Examples of Social Contribution from IIT Madras Alumni

Gravity Head Ensures a Green Plant and Sustainability: A Case Study of Gangtok City

Sustasinable Rural Water Management - A Replicable Case Study
 Catalyst MEMBERSHIP FORM
FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

ASSOCIATION FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

501c(3) Non-Profit Organization; Federal Tax ID: 20-1848083

WELCOMES YOU TO JOIN THIS PROJECT!

Your memebership will help in the following ways:
 To publish and provide a platform through  To organize an Annual Development Congress
Catalyst FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
 To conduct research on the NGO movement  To support the networking of NGOs

In Return You Benefit By:

1. Having copies of the magazine mailed directly to your address.
(Focus areas - NRIs, Water, Poverty, Primary Education, Rural Transformation, Arts, and Human Development)
2. A FREE copy of How to Change the World Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
by David Bornstein priced $ 30 in the US and Rs. 395 in India
3. 25% discount on all our publications and meeting registrations

Name :

E-mail ID :

Address :

City : State :

Zip/Pin Code : Country:

My Subscription Is:

$500 $200 $100 Or :

Rs.5000 Rs.1000 Rs.500 Or :

Cheque enclosed Bill me later

Cheques payable to - AFHD in USA

Cheques payable to - IFHD in India

For membership in America, mail to: For membership in India, mail to:
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
208, Parkway Drive, Roslyn Heights, IHFD, Balaji Residency, 12-13-705/10/AB
NY, 11577, USA Gokul Nagar, Tarnaka, Hyderabad 500017, A.P., India
 CONTENTS 7
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Preface: Dr. Bhamy V. Shenoy ... 8

A Better Understanding of CSR : Ruby Thapar ... 9
Magic School Bus :
Evolving a CSR Model - The Bilt Forging Successful
Experience : Yashashree Gurjar ...11 Partnerships:
Toward CSR : Prabhudev Konana ... 15 Alison Adnitt 13

Inclusive Development As
Self-sustaining Business: P.V. Indiresan ...19

2007 CSR: Interesting Revelations

from a Survey ... 22 CSR to Society’s Advantage
or Corporates’ ?:
CSR: Two Exemplary Rajen Varada 17
Corporations: Sandhya Rawal ... 23
CSR: The Other Point Of View: Gurucharan Das ... 24
But...Tata Lays the Path ... 25
PM’s Word of Advice to Corporates ... 27 Corporate-backed
China Late in Joining World of CSR : Sha Yu ... 28 Community Enterprises
Unending Debate on CSR: A UNDP Report ... 29 Flourish in Southern India:
Muthu Velayudham 31
CSR Contact Database Grows Further ... 33
CSR Initiatives and Examples ... 34
Zulieben’s Success Story: Jayant Shroff ... 38

Non-Functioning MPs, Indifferent

Citizens: C.V . Madhukar ... 42 Yamuna River
Cleanup Effort ... :
Karmayog Plays Crucial Role In Resolving Subijoy Dutta 40
People’s Problems: Vinay Somani ... 43

Thanks to Infrasys
Kottapalayam is Out of the Dark: Murthy Sudhakar ... 45
FEC Initiative Building
Resource Alliance Helping NGOs in Business-Social
Developing Countries ... 48 Partnerships:
Venkatesh Raghavendra &
Unfortunate Fall of an NGO Titan: Malini Sekhar 46
Lessons to learn: Dr. Bhamy V. Shenoy ... 49
Pledge 2007 - An Evening for Child Rights ... 52
Premji a Crusader for Humane Society ... 54
Book Review ... 55
2007 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship ... 56 Rural Innovations:
Biodiversity for Development: Dr. K. Srinivasa Rao ... 58 A shining Example 51
8 PREFACE
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

W
HILE working on this issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), it became obvious
from the beginning that there is considerable variance in its interpretations and, as a re-
sult, in its implementation. While almost all the large Indian corporations and MNCs have
well defined CSR activities, medium and small companies have yet to imbibe the true spirit of CSR.
This is both because of the misunderstanding of CSR concept and their daily grind to survive in the
corruption–ridden inspection Raj.

There are some who think that merely generating maximum returns to the shareholders, while
complying with all the rules and regulations of the government, is the ultimate in fulfilling the
needs of responsible CSR activities. They think that applying corporate assets for solving social
problems rather than maximizing shareholder value is an act of irresponsibility. There are others
who think that private companies also have the responsibility of taking care of the poor and down-
trodden in their areas as well as protecting the environment while practising sustainable production
strategies. Who is right in the long term? Can we learn from the lessons of Shell in Nigeria or oil
companies in Bolivia who failed to observe the true spirit of CSR?

To a large extent, most of the CSR activities, whether by MNCs or domestic companies in India,
are influenced today by their counterparts in the developed world. This raises the fundamental
question of why they have failed to see the vastly different situation in India.

It is stating the obvious that when poverty, and that too grinding poverty, is the norm in India de-
spite all the sound bites on “India Shining”, can corporations be oblivious to this stark and unpleas-
ant fact. In the developed world, for most part, the system works with good governance and
reasonable level of public participation. But, in India we are a long way from good governance. De-
spite all the hype of vibrant democracy, it is only the tiny minority of the political class that take
part in solving the civic problems and that too for their own selfish ends. Under this widely different
scenario, why do companies with vast management resources and better knowledge of the system
dynamics simply ape the CSR paradigm of the developed countries?

Those companies, who want to contribute to India’s development through their investment in
highly controversial SEZs, are often perceived as ignoring the needs of the poor whose lands they
have taken over. Does paying market rates to their lands absolve them of the responsibility? Why
can’t they carry them as shareholders so that they can also be partners like other investors (in fact
they have risked their livelihood) and share their prosperity? A correct interpretation of CSR would
have helped these companies to adopt such a strategy to win over the poor.

When millions in India still remain functionally illiterate because of dysfunctional education system,
can companies pat themselves by announcing that they have contributed to starting some schools
or gave crores of rupees for scholarships or trained hundreds of teachers or donated thousands of
books? What we need is a revolutionary systemic change so that every child irrespective of accident
of birth has equal opportunity to have good schooling. An enlightened CSR should attempt to fol-
low the principle of teaching how to fish rather than just giving out a fish to overcome the imme-
diate hunger.

CSR should go beyond mere philanthropy especially in a country like India where people living
in below poverty level are more than 50%. It is not just spending some percentage of profits for
a social cause. Just like an individual living in a society cannot be concerned only with his self–in-
terest as described in Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, corporations cannot be indifferent to so-
cietal problems as suggested by Milton Friedman.
Dr. Bhamy V. Shenoy

A Better Understanding of
Corporate Social Responsibility
RUBY THAPAR
Corporate Social Responsibility is not a subsidiary responsibility of a corporate body or an
option. Indeed it is very much a complementary responsibility or rather a compulsion of
any corporate body that aims to add value to it’s operations.
ORPORATE Social Responsibility, or CSR, as it is
C commonly referred to these days is rapidly becom-
ing a jargon. The phrase is on the brink of losing
the sheen of its nobility. Increasingly the oft-used-and-
abused phrase CSR is being commoditised, not just in its
meaning but also in its concept.
What exactly is corporate social responsibility? Is it a pa-
tronising way to salve a corporate guilt? Or is it a bejew-
eled crown that corporate houses need to wear for vanity?
Or is it truly a responsibility that is as indispensable for a
corporate body as its responsibility to its shareholders?
A widely quoted definition by the World Business Council
for Sustainable Development states that "Corporate social
responsibility (CSR) is the continuing commitment by busi-
ness to behave ethically and contribute to economic devel-
opment while improving the quality of life of the
workforce and their families as well as of the local com-
munity and society at large."
Community work
It is important to distinguish CSR from charitable dona-
tions, "good works" and philanthropy. Corporations have
often, in the past, spent money on community projects,
the endowment of scholarships, and the establishment of
foundations. They have also often encouraged their em-
ployees to volunteer to take part in community work and
thereby create goodwill in the community, which will di-
rectly enhance the reputation of the company and
strengthen its brand.
CSR goes beyond charity and requires that a responsible
company take into full account its impact on all stakehold-
ers and on the environment when making decisions. This
requires the company to balance the needs of all stake-
holders with its need to make a profit and reward share-
holders adequately.
In today’s networked corporate arena, Corporate Social
Responsibility is not an option, it’s a compulsion. It is not
CSR 9
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Ruby Thapar earned her Masters
Degree in Child/Human Development
from the SNDT University, Mumbai
and subsequently PG Diploma in
Business Management from XLRI,
Jamshedpur. Ruby Thapar is now the
Group Head, CSR, at Vedanta
Resources plc. Prior to joining
Vedanta Resources, Ruby worked in the arena of CSR
in academic capacity as a lecturer, as an implementing
partner with an NGO and as strategic thinker with
corporations.
about meeting the target of installing 5 tube wells or
cleaning the drains, it is about sustenance and growth. It
is as much about social responsibility as it is about making
a company more efficient. CSR is about improving the bot-
tomline and maximizing returns to the stakeholders.
A well-planned CSR programme, even with a short-term
impact, can have direct co-relations with the following op-
erational aspects of an organisation.
Human resources
A CSR programme can be seen as an aid to recruitment
and retention, particularly within the competitive graduate
student market. Potential recruits are increasingly likely to
ask about a firm's CSR policy during an interview and hav-
ing a comprehensive policy can give an advantage. CSR
can also help to build a "feel good" atmosphere among ex-
isting staff, particularly when they can become involved.
Brand differentiation: CSR can play a role in building cus-
tomer loyalty based on distinctive ethical values. Several
major brands, such as The Co-operative Group and The
Body Shop are built on ethical values. Closer home, the en-
tire Amul Story crafted by Dr. Kurien is a prime example of
corporate social responsibility that evolved into a profitable
business venture.
10 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
License to operate: Corporations are
keen to avoid interference in their busi-
ness through taxation or regulations. By
taking substantive voluntary steps they
can persuade governments and the
wider public that they are taking current
issues like health and safety, diversity or
the environment seriously and so avoid
intervention.
Complimentary resposibility
The definition of CSR used within an
organisation can vary from the strict "stakeholder impacts"
to include charitable efforts and volunteering. CSR may be
based within the human resources, business development
or PR departments of an organisation, or may be given a
separate unit reporting to the CEO or in some cases directly
to the board. Some companies may implement CSR-type
values without a clearly defined team or programme.
Today’s heightened interest in the role of businesses in
society has been promoted by increased sensitivity to and
awareness of environmental and ethical issues. In some
countries government regulation regarding environmental
and social issues has increased. Standards and laws are
Hyundai Motors India is Deeply Committed
to Corporate Social Responsibility
YUNDAI Motors India last year gifted 100 cars
H to Chennai City Police. The company is now
donating furniture to needy schools across Tamil
Nadu as part of its community development pro-
gramme.
A study conducted recently by the Hyundai Motors
India Foundation has found
that most schools in rural Tamil
Nadu lacked good furniture. In
some schools, they found that
students sat on the floor for
lack of furniture.
Hyundai Motors India pre-
sented 350 desks and benches
in June, 2007 to the Panchayat
often set at a supranational level like the
Kyoto Protocol. Some investors and in-
vestment fund managers have begun to
take account of a corporation’s CSR policy
in making investment decisions (so-called
ethical investing).
Having said this, it is not something that
can be accomplished alone by any corpo-
ration. The need of the hour is neutral
platforms of collaborations, interactions
and task-orientedness among NGOs, the
civil society, the government and the corporations to hasten
the pace of social development in line with the economic
reforms.
What needs to be kept in mind about CSR is that it is not
a subsidiary responsibility of a corporate body. Indeed it is
very much a complementary responsibility of any corporate
body that aims to add value to its operations.

ruby.thapar@vedanta.co.in
(The views expressed here are of the author
and do not represent the views of
Vedanta Resources plc)
Elementary School and Government High School at
Irungattukottai near Kanchipuram. To cover all schools
in the state, the company plans to distribute 10,000
furniture sets per year.
The Korean company, which has a manufacturing fa-
cility in Irigattukottai for the past 10 years, has emerged
as the country's second largest
car manufacturer. To mark the
success, the company dedicated
Rs 100 per car sold for social
welfare programmes.
Hyundai is also undertaking
repair works of schools in a six
kilo meter radius of the Irigat-
tukottai plant.


Evolving a Corporate Social Responsibility
Model - The Bilt Experience
YASHASHREE GURJAR
Ballarpur Industries Limited (Bilt) CSR programmes reach out to 150 remote villages and 50
urban slums in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Mahrashtra and Haryana states, impacting the lives
of 2,00,000 people. Bilt partners with 12 local NGOs as implementers of the projects.
The programmes focus on the issue of livelihood creation with communities.
S the world moves towards globalization, companies
A worldwide are under pressure to ensure that their
products and process have minimum negative impact
on environment and people. Responsibly managing the com-
pany’s manufacturing process, the back–end, the supply
chain, and the front–end, marketing, is becoming increasingly
important. Companies are not only putting such systems in
place but they are auditing and reporting such activities vol-
untarily. Awareness is also on the rise within various stake-
holder groups about a company’s products and how they
impact the environment and societies.
Innovative contribution
In India this trend is quickly catching up as demonstrated by
many of the large companies beginning to include Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) in their business agenda. Industry
associations like CII and FICCI have also included CSR as
part of their agendas. There is increasing evidence to show
that companies that are high on such responsible behaviour
are also high on the list of the most respected companies in
India. CSR is understood differently by different companies in
India. Some perceive it as periodic donations to charity, others
look at it as a strategic long term support to issues. Whatever
definitions companies may use, the important underlying
concern is the need to contribute to the vast development
challenges that the country faces.
CSR 11
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Yashashree Gurjar holds a
Masters Degree in Sociology, a Post
Graduate Diploma in Education,
both from Pune University, and an
Executive MBA from the Asian
Institute of Management in Manila,
Philippines.
She started her career in the social development field in
1988 and worked ever since with the Government and a
number of NGOs mainly in the areas of education, child
rights and advocacy. In 1993, she joined Reliance
Industries Limited and initiated the CSR activities there.
Later on she joined Rio Tinto India Ltd, a Multi-National
mining company, and worked on rehabilitation and
re-settlement issues on their projects in Maharashtra,
Orissa and Rajasthan. She currently heads the CSR
initiatives of Bilt as the Chief General Manager.
The nineties brought in the era of economic liberalization.
Opening up the economy resulted in a number of opportu-
nities, seen in the accelerated industrial and economic growth
of the last decade. However, the focus on a market–driven
economy has also contributed to the widening of the income,
knowledge, and opportunity divides, pushing some sections
of people deeper into the abyss of poverty. One of the main
reasons for this downward spiral is that the benefits of this ac-
celerated pace of development can not be accessed by every-
one equally.
In a vast country like India where large numbers still live
below one dollar per day, this problem is compounded by
the inability of the government systems to ensure reach of its
development programmes to the most marginalized living in
the remote areas of the country. This increasing divide is not
good news for the corporate sector simply because the larger
the number of people that get left out of development the
stronger the backward pull manifesting itself as shrinking
markets in future for the goods and services that the com-
panies produce, community unrest and aggression, inability
to get skilled labour etc.
12 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
The CSR agenda as outlined by the developed North does
not include these unique challenges. The global framework
and standards of CSR will therefore need to be continuously
fine–tuned by CSR practioners in India to make them more
relevant to the Indian context. The immense challenges that
the country faces vis-à-vis development impacts the way CSR
is perceived and implemented by companies in India. Issues
like poverty, inadequate livelihood options, lack of quality ed-
ucation and illiteracy and the challenges arising from these is-
sues are what most companies have to deal with as part of
their daily operations.
Therefore, CSR in India cannot be limited to being viewed
as a way of doing good business or managing business
processes well. It needs to go much be-
yond business, to actively participate in
helping resolve some of the above men-
tioned issues. Majority of the companies
that include CSR in their agendas em-
phasize addressing these issues through
their CSR programmes and practices.
The Indian CSR model has evolved over
the last few decades to give rise to some
innovative ways to address develop-
ment issues.
Partnership with NGOs
Ballarpur Industries Ltd (Bilt) is one of India’s leading paper
companies in India and the market leader in the manufacture
of writing and printing paper. As a manufacturing company
located in some of the most remote parts of the country Bilt
is faced with many of the previously mentioned challenges.
The communities living around these locations are poor and
marginalized and have had limited access to opportunities for
development. In most cases Bilt is one of the only, business
entities in the area.
In remote areas the avenues for income generation are lim-
ited and the focus of people becomes industry related em-
ployment. Expectations from people all around are generally
high; however since a company cannot fulfil all these expec-
tations, even some of the positive social impacts of it being in
the area, like availability of jobs, get diluted due to the limited
numbers in which they are generated and the vast majority of
people desirous of accessing them. This results in dissatisfac-
tion among people in the area and a worsening of the rela-
tionship with communities.
Over the last few years Bilt realised that sporadic inputs in
an area are not adequate to address the issues brought about
by decades of it being left out of the mainstream develop-
ment. Although we decided to address the issue in a system-
atic way with a long term focus, we realised that we were not
the correct people to do so as we did not have the adequate
competencies required to handle development. We developed
a model that included partnering with local NGOs to imple-
ment long term projects based on the identified needs of the
communities in the area.
Farm-based activities
Some of the programmes that we have taken up to make
these people economically productive are vocational and skill
training, providing loans to youth to set up micro enterprises
like carpentry units, motorcycle repairing units and units for
products outsourced from the company. The projects also con-
centrate on expanding the scope of traditional farm-based ac-
tivities to those without education, to include commercial
vegetable farming, floriculture, provid-
ing improved variety of seeds and
technical know how. Loans are also
provided for off farm activities like
poultry, goat rearing, dairy and pisicul-
ture etc. These programmes gave the
community a financial hold over their
lives. Health and education are also an
extremely important component of
the poverty alleviation programme in
the pursuit of livelihood. The outreach
programme on health has reached
more than 50,000 people in this year alone. Availability of
health care at their doorstep lead to improved health status es-
pecially among women and children. Trained health workers
are now available in each village with basic medicine kits and
safe delivery kits available with them all the time.
Informal education and bridge courses are provided to chil-
dren out of schools in the community. Bilt provides training to
selected youth from a village to conduct these classes. Today,
Bilt as part of CSR is empowering local communities so that
they can play a constructive role in their own development
thus decreasing their dependence on the company. It also en-
courages employee prevention volunteerism. Through
HIV/Aids prevention activities and other health interventions
it tries to create a healthy workplace. Internal monitoring and
reporting mechanisms are in place and are an important part
of this process. Bilt also developed a participatory monitoring
system wherein the participating stakeholders are part of the
review systems.
These efforts lead to the development of a holistic CSR
model that is based on a win-win partnership. It is working for
Bilt and is bringing returns in terms of better relations with
communities, governments, NGO’s and civil societies besides
meeting the needs of the stakeholders in a sustainable
manner.

ygurjar@bilt.com

Magic School Bus:
Forging Successful Partnerships
ALISON ADNITT
For Magic Bus, raising awareness in privileged communities of the potential of
our children is extremely important for the social inclusion element of our work.
Corporate social responsibility is certainly not just about writing a cheque.
CSR and beyond…
I remember meeting one of the senior members of Nike’s
philanthropy team last year who said to me – he never
wants to receive another funding proposal that arrives on
his desk with a cover page that reads: Just do it…..
with….(a very worthy community based children’s project
no doubt)……I made a mental note to self: ‘change cover
page of pending Magic Bus proposal to Nike…..’
Admittedly, it is a little obvious…. “Think global, act local
– the HSBC Magic Bus partnership”, “Where vision gets
built: the Lehman Brothers Magic Bus partnership”, but
what it stands for is an aligning of vision. The intention to
enter into a partnership with the business, where risk and
benefits are shared, rather than an old fashioned
donor/charity relationship. The gesture of reiterating a
companies’ strap line on the front of your proposal is per-
haps a little obvious, but researching a potential partner and
understanding how your project can benefit their business
objectives is very important and makes for a far more suc-
cessful project.
Resource requirements
Since its inception, mobilising local funding has been
Magic Bus’s objective and we have seen the engagement
with local businesses rather than trusts, as providing us with
the most sustainable solution to our resource requirements.
Admittedly, we
sourced fund-
ing overseas to
meet the initial
demand of our
setup costs,
curriculum de-
velopment
phase and cap-
ital investment.
But from the
beginning we
worked hard
CSR 13
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Alison Adnitt joined Magic Bus
from Christie’s Fine Art
Auctioneers, where she worked for
six years as a senior specialist in
British and Anglo-Indian Art.
She has an MA Joint Honours in
History of Art and German from
Edinburgh University and Berlin
Freie Universität. Before moving to India, she
volunteered for Magic Bus as a fundraiser in the UK
and has worked as Operations Director in Mumbai
since October 2002 before moving into her
current role looking at partnerships and strategic
development. She has just completed a post-graduate
diploma at Cambridge University in Cross-Sector
Partnerships and has worked on a number of CSR
relationships with leading MNCs, such as Lehman
Brothers, KPMG, GE and HSBC.
to forge lasting partnerships where a company’s financial
commitment is matched by us with a commitment to deliver
a rewarding staff engagement programme and communica-
tion strategy.
A typical Magic Bus partnership with a business involves
a commitment to sponsor a particular group of children,
school or institution. Over the year, staff from that company
would join for sports days, events, learning and develop-
ment camps at our centre and in staff-organised fundraising
drives such as running in the Mumbai marathon. Managers
and HR teams have reported to us that their staff have ben-
efited from what they have learnt alongside our children in
terms of leadership, communication skills and general out-
look on life. There is no doubt that a highly engaging com-
munity project delivers a business benefit in terms of staff
development, reward and retention.
Magic Bus has always seen its corporate donors as
partners, even if in the early days the feeling wasn’t
14 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

mutual ! Our long standing partners, Indian Advisory Corporate training

Partners, GE, HSBC, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and But this is not where it ends. Imagine if you could
Deutsche Bank are, however, certainly of the opinion that know that your company is supporting a child develop-
they have benefited from the communication to the ment programme through the purchase of something
community and their stakeholders of the partnership and you already have in your annual HR budget? The Magic
most importantly a vibrant staff engagement programme Bus partnership with businesses is going one step further
with our children. and our philanthropy partners will also become our
clients. In a social enterprise model, Magic Bus set up an
Community youth organisation-owned revenue project to offer corporate
This model will always remain important to us. How- training to its partners. Over the last 4 years we raised
ever, in the future it will be community youth coming in the funds to buy over 20 acres of land in the hills outside
to renew the annual partnership rather than the fundrais- Mumbai built a state–of–the–art outdoor learning and
ing director, as Magic Bus turns over the responsibility of development centre complete with an international chal-
its programme to the graduates from each community. lenge course, water sports facilities, football pitch, and
Imagine when Pooja, a 21 year old rescued street girl, obstacle course. The centre is packed with Magic Bus
children during
certain seasons of
the year. But
even when the
children are
there, the centre
is so expansive
that we can offer
an extremely
high quality of
corporate team
building and
leadership devel-
opment pro-
g r a m m e s
simultaneously.

With the cur-

and now a Magic Bus coach, comes in to ask for a grant
of $6,000 to deliver her programme to over 300 children,
I am convinced that community affairs managers will find
it difficult to say no. Whereas saying no to one of a long
line of fundraising directors like me, is much easier!
Magic Bus seeks social sustainability for its pro-
grammes and hence the project has to become commu-
nity-owned. A Magic Bus coach might decide to fund
his or her programme through an affordable joining fee
from the children or from conducting private coaching in
the evenings for a local corporate partners’ children.
Whatever happens, it will be community-driven and lo-
cally supported, and our partnerships with businesses
will remain crucial.
rent shining
economy in India,
The 9% GDP
growth last year
and the opening
up of international investment, companies’ greatest
problems lie in the recruitment and retention of staff. As
a result, the training market is thriving and is yet not
very sophisticated. Corporate Social Responsibility has
never been so key, with companies required not to just
comply with environmental, human resource and com-
munity development best practices but to exceed it in
the competition to offer the best to customers and at-
tract the best staff.
For us the growing desire of the business community
to excel at corporate social responsibility is a major con-
tributor to our sustainability and long may it last.

alison@magicbusindia.org

Toward Corporate Social Responsibility
PRABHUDEV KONANA
CSR has much broader implications for the nation as a whole. It reduces dependency on
the government for social change. Most governmental programmes quickly become
embroiled in political, administrative, and communal wrangles. There is a need for
public-private partnership for the best use of the available resources.
ARIVEDA Solutions in Dallas, Texas, USA is a firm
P that takes corporate social responsibility seriously.
One of my students and a current hire for the com-
pany, steven Huan, writes as follows:
"Pariveda is a three–year–old company that prides itself
on team work and helping one another out. In fact, that
even the lowest paid employees in the company are within
the top 1% of wage-earners on the planet teaches us how
important it is to share what we have with everyone else.
Service to the community is not an option but rather a re-
quirement of the company and there is a direct relationship
between salary (or more directly location on the organisa-
tional ladder) and the amount of service hours required.
Therefore, the senior partners have to do the most amount
of service.
Corporate activism
“I went to meet my company executives and new co-
workers as part of Habitat for Humanity build day
event...I realised that I hadn't seen the president of the
company since I got there. Eventually I found him, in the
rafters of the house, hammering away, drenched in sweat.
This 50+year old person wasn't telling anybody what to
do. He took the initiative and, without saying a word, had
people working with him because he was working harder
than anyone else around him. This was a man who people
wanted to work with.”
Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit organisation of vol-
unteers engaged in building affordable housing for the
needy. This e-mail articulates the need for corporate so-
cial responsibility (CSR), even while the firm's main ob-
jective is to increase shareholder value. The Pariveda
executives are great role models for the new recruits. This
corporate activism is acceptable, sustainable, and valuable
as a change agent, particularly in the context of India. So-
cial reforms driven by the community will bring people
together, turn the attention of the masses to tasks that
benefit society, and reinforce peace and harmony.
In recent times, a number of foundations set up by
leading Indian firms, including Infosys, Wipro, Tatas, TVS,
CSR 15
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Prabhudev Konana is a
Distinguished Teaching Professor
at the University of Texas at
Austin. He received his PhD in
Information Management from the
University of Arizona. He has
published over 70 articles in
journals, magazines, conferences
and newspapers. His articles on economic and social
issues have appeared in The Hindu. He has numerous
teaching and research awards including the NSF
CAREER Award. He is one of the co-founders of Pragathi,
a non-profit organization to support elementary
education in India.
and Dr. Reddy's Laboratory, have taken a keen interest in
corporate activism to improve healthcare, education, and
living conditions, and reduce poverty. These foundations
support numerous government primary schools and have
developed processes and methodologies for effective
change. They support hundreds of non-governmental or-
ganisations and have built orphanages, hospitals, and
schools.
Challenges
However, the challenges in India are enormous. Social
responsibility should not be limited to large successful cor-
porations; there should be greater participation from most
small, medium, and large businesses. The goodwill that
firms can generate from acts of social responsibility may, in
fact, be worth far more to the businesses than the amounts
they give. Corporations collectively can make India a better
place to live.
Corporate social responsibility is about tradition and cul-
ture. Firms can institutionalise voluntarism among employ-
ees through appropriate incentives and recognition.
Internal performance evaluation of employees could
recognise community work. Community work can be of
many forms: teaching in government schools, supporting
NGOs financially, empowering women, cleaning parks,
planting trees, volunteering in orphanages, protecting the
abused. Many corporations in America allow employees
16 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
to write about their community service as part of their an-
nual evaluation report. Even if companies do not reward
community activities, at least, the idea that the company
cares will have a positive impact.
Creating Demand
Corporate social responsibility can be much more than
charity. An innovative way to contribute socially is for
firms to spend in towns and villages, and to buy products
from millions of artisans who are at the bottom of the
economic pyramid. ‘Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyra-
mid’ (Author: C. K. Prahalad) calls for corporations to
design products/services for the enormous population at
the bottom of the pyramid. The basic assumption is that
this population segment has some disposable income and
firms can still make profits on large volume. Why not
consider creating wealth at the bottom of the pyramid,
which can increase disposable in-
come and buying power?
For example, firms can give arti-
sans' products as corporate gifts
or use them for interior decora-
tion, which may have socially
more redeemable value than cur-
rent methods. If there are quality
issues, then corporations can use
their resources to increase quality
awareness among artisans. Un-
fortunately, the above roles to create demand and im-
prove quality rest on the government and the resources
spent for such activity hardly reach the intended benefi-
ciaries.
Building facilities
Further, corporate spending outside large cities can
help spread wealth. Large corporations can exploit hun-
dreds of historical places in rural towns and villages for
corporate training, conferences, and getaways. Of
course, innovative ways are needed to create decent
hotels, restaurants, and basic amenities outside major
cities. The Indian Government has championed building
hotels to promote tourism. However, the initiatives are
riddled with inefficiencies, poor service, and wasted re-
sources. Private entities with support from several cor-
porations can collectively build facilities on a
time-sharing basis that will help invigorate economic
activity. It is necessary to create jobs and economic ac-
tivity in rural communities to uplift the masses. Unless
wealthy corporations and individuals spend on goods
and services that touch the masses (like artisans' prod-
ucts), economic prosperity for most of the population
will remain a dream.
Inculcating corporate social responsibility is also about
training young minds and helping future generations or-
ganise themselves for greater good. Social responsibility
needs to be deeply ingrained from childhood. In America,
increasingly admission to elite private and public universities
is not only based on academic grades, but also participation
in community activities and leadership roles. Social respon-
sibility is about leadership, respect for fellow human beings,
and checks and balances. It is not uncommon to find high
school students volunteering in community work. Scholar-
ships are awarded to those who show community leader-
ship and academic performance.
Change needed
Unfortunately, in India, admissions to even some of the
best institutions are purely based on performance in en-
trance exams. Worse, entering the civil services is also
about securing high grades in ac-
ademic subjects. Thus, parents
and young minds are focussed in-
tently on examinations and exam-
inations alone. Obviously, the next
generation is groomed likewise. To
break this cycle, there needs to be
a radical change in the incentive
structure in the educational sys-
tem, and admission and hiring
process. Consideration must be
given not only to grades, but also
to leadership roles and societal impact; these may have
greater value to corporations and society.
Throughout my schooling not once did I engage in social
or charity activity. There were hardly any role models at the
faculty level or friends to look beyond classroom/books.
My engineering institution in India never promoted societal
responsibilities. Contrast this with the UT-Austin, which ac-
tively supports and nurtures over 900-plus student-led or-
ganisations under the "Student Activities and Leadership
Development" (SALD) programme. Likewise, high schools
engage with a large number of student-led organisations.
While not all these organisations are about social work,
many explicitly create awareness of leadership qualities and
social responsibility.
Every country should embrace the remarkable concept
of individuals and businesses forming a partnership to sup-
port social causes. In the context of India, such a partner-
ship has enormous potential for strengthening society.

pkonana@mail.utexas.edu.
(The article was originally published in The Hindu)

Corporate Social Responsibility to
Society’s Advantage or Corporates’?
RAJEN VARADA
Seemingly good corporates have claimed that the work of an NGO has
been because of their support.
HERE are two sides to the Corporate Social Responsi-
T bility (CSR) coin. Many corporate companies see CSR
as an opportunity to boost the brand image of their
companies, The attitude is, let us partner with an NGO and
use the partnership to build the image of the company. In
this endeavour, they spend more time on promotional activ-
ities which are well publicised. The company’s commitment
starts and ends at that.
There are cases where companies have promised comput-
ers, the NGO discovered that they have been palmed off
with e-waste; a very smart move where the company is con-
cerned as they build brand image while getting rid of their
waste. The NGO is then stuck with the costs of trying to
make the computers work. There are many such stories and
I feel if a study is done, a lot of dirt would be dug up and
many large companies will find holes in the citadels of their
character.
Adding values
On the other side, there are companies who have real com-
mitment and look beyond the CSR idea to add value to soci-
ety. They support blood donation camps, eye testing camps,
etc. However these are all limited to the extent of the budget
available to the CSR unit.
Technology For The People (TFTP) has experienced both
CSR 17
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Rajen Varada is the founding member of Technology
For The People (TFTP), an NGO based in south India,
that works towards providing IT based livelihood
options for deprived and marginalized communities.
Prior to dedicating himself fully to TFTP, he was an ICT
consultant to UNICEF, Hyderabad, India. He has
designed and managed the development of the ICT
package for health called “Sisu Samrakshak”, which
won the 2005 Manthan award and the World Summit
award in e-health. He has also designed modules on
HIV/AIDS using ICT for Indian rural communities.
sides of the CSR coin and decided not to be a part of the CSR
projects at all. So how can NGOs work with the corporate
sector?
TFTP looks at developing business partnerships with com-
panies so that programs are more sustainable. This involves
studying companies’ work flows and if the communities we
work with can be trained to fit into those work spaces. We
jointly develop training programs so that the community
meets industry standards and further partners with the com-
pany to see if the work flows can be outsourced into the com-
munity itself. In this process we have developed an “Industry
Mapping Method” where we can now map the industry re-
quirements and the skills available with the community.
The following is a case study of our intervention in the old city
of Hyderabad where such an exercise has been undertaken.
Partnerships
We are now partnering with other companies who have seen
what can be done and are looking for a win-win situation.
This kind of partnerships between NGOs and companies, I
believe, is the way CSR should evolve, enabling ways which
can help industry address problems of attrition and work
flows will go a long way in making the community initiatives
more sustainable. Companies, in turn, will gain with more
loyal work forces and resource pools of persons from the
NGOs.
18 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Collaboration with Industry: a Crucial Link
In the animation industry, while the investment in
human resources is high, turnover of trained personnel is
also high, which affects business plans of the firms. Cre-
ating skilled artists is advantages as they can serve as a
reserve pool of personnel with more stability in employ-
ment.
dard exams along with livelihood training in animation.
Students with different grades of skills are identified and
TFTP, in liaison with Star Features, conducts a training
module on animation to suit their levels of learning. The
course starts with basic drawing skills and progresses to
converting the hand movement techniques from mehendi
to animation.

TFTP partnered with Star Features Studio to develop
the training methodology for conversion of the traditional
craftspeople into animation artists. Star Features is an In-
dian Firm involved in developing animation series in the
area of education. While this collaboration will address
the issue of high turnover of artists, trained people from
this initiative will be employed in the existing market by
the studio. Towards this, the studio is willing to outsource
its work to young trained people.
TFTP established resource centres in five locations in
parts of the old city of Hyderabad to provide education
and livelihood alternatives for adolescent girls who are
vulnerable to early marriages and other exploitative forms
of labour. Students are prepared to appear for the X Stan-
After completing the six months course, internships are
organised in Star Features as an extension of the regular
classes, so that a smooth transfer to the new employment
is facilitated. Inputs on personality development, commu-
nication, and spoken English are also incorporated in the
curriculum so that the students are empowered for this
transition in their lives.
Adolescent girls, who dropped out of school and earn a
meagre income by way of helping their mothers in hand-
embroidery and mehendi-designing during wedding sea-
sons, are now full time graphic and animation artists for
Star Features, an animation studio in the city of Hyder-
abad.

rajen@tftpeople.org

Bharti Group To open

1,000 Schools In 5 Yrs
HE Bharti Foundation and its associates will soon open

T 1,000 primary schools in villages across India with an in-

vestment of Rs 200 crore. According to Rakesh Bharti
Mittal, vice-chairman and managing director of Bharti group,
the aim is to help the needy children who drop out of school
without completing their school education due to family cir-
cumstances.

The group already opened 200 primary schools under the

banner of "Satya Bharti School" in different states in the coun-
try.The target is to establish 1,000 schools in 5 years. The
Bharti Foundation is running eight schools in Ludhiana district,
in association with the Punjab School Education Board. Mittal
said that Nehru Siddhant Kendra Trust, Ludhiana, will finance
the entire schooling of 10 percent students at the Sat Paul Mit-
tal School, so that meritorious students of low and medium
income groups may get the opportunity to study in a good
public school.


Inclusive Development as
Self-sustaining Business
P.V. INDIRESAN
Inclusive development model should interest businesses for their schemes of
corporate social responsibility: Instead of providing charity, businesses could
support no-loss, no-profit exercises of far larger magnitude, and enjoy
greater goodwill than through smaller charities.
number of hospitals in India, starting with the ven-
A erable Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore,
offer highly expensive services, like heart opera-
tions, free to poor patients. Inclusion of the poor, irrespec-
tive of their origin, demonstrated by hospitals like CMC,
Vellore, Narayana Hridayalaya in Bangalore and Kolkata, L
V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad (to name a few) pro-
vides the basis for devising a generalised model of inclu-
sive development.
This model should interest businesses for their schemes
of corporate social responsibility. Instead of providing
charity, businesses could support no-loss, no-profit exer-
cises of far larger magnitude, and enjoy greater goodwill
than smaller charities will. These schemes will also en-
hance the economic status of the community, increase
purchasing power and indirectly enhance their main busi-
ness.
In an interview, Dr. Devi Shetty of Narayana Hridayalaya
emphasised the salient philosophy of his inclusive move-
ment:
If I am given a choice I would like to treat only the poor
patients. But unfortunately the economic reality will not
allow me to do that. So instead what we do is, offer 25%
of the beds for the rich people and 75% we leave for the
poor. (In the new 5000-bed hospital he is constructing in
Kolkata, share of the poor is 50%.)
Intermediary job
In this society there are a large number of people who
need help but do not know where help will be available.
And there are a good number of people with money with
the intention to help but don't know who requires it. We
do that intermediary job. We are the brokers between those
who need and those who have. If we tell people that we are
going to charge one-and-a half lakh rupees for an opera-
tion, can you give us Rs 30,000? Does it make any sense?
CSR 19
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Professor P.V. Indiresan has
taught in the IITs for forty years.
He has been Director of IIT
Madras and was also the Past
President of the Indian National
Academy of Engineering, and also
of the Institution of Electronics
and Telecommunication
Engineers. He is one of the
two-dozen Honorary Members of
the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers,
USA, among whom a dozen are Nobel Prize winners. He
has been awarded the Padma Bhushan and his students
have built a hostel in his name at IIT Delhi. He writes on
alternate Mondays in the Hindu Businessline.
That person is not going to give us the money. So we tell
him that we are going to operate on this child and offer
our services free. Can you help us do it? This has worked.
A lot of people have given money.
Dr Devi Shetty’s hospital, with 75, or even 50% treat-
ment devoted to the poor, is an extreme case. The CMC
boasts of three classes of services that may be roughly de-
scribed as cost-plus, cost-equal and cost-minus categories.
The cost-plus category offers luxurious non-medical facil-
ities like special wards and cross subsidises poor patients
who get lower non-medical facilities (general wards) but
same medical treatment.
Different services
We may generalise the idea by postulating a hospital
that operates as a non-profit company and provides four
classes of service:
(a) The poorest who get all treatment free
(b) The less poor who pay only for medicines
(c) The normal group who pay both for medicines
and labour costs
(d) The rich who are charged interest and deprecia
tion costs also. In addition, they make a
20 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

contribution to a Charity Fund run by a separate trust. or as a non-profit company. When run as a society, the
management runs the risk of being captured by pressure
The Charity Trust (which may receive contributions from groups. Several societies, which started with noble inten-
non-patients too) meets the costs of treating the poor and tions, are known to have been politicised. Operating as a
subsidises the treatment of the second category. Those trust, the institution faces less risk of take-over but can
contributions will enjoy tax benefits. To the extent the suffer from inbreeding. Functioning as a non-profit com-
state offers tax rebates, it shares the cost of treating the pany has two advantages: One, power is distributed ac-
poor in a private hospital. cording to the financial contribution made. Two, its
accounting standards will be high and transparent.
As a non-profit company, the hospital may be allowed to
issue bonds that get the same tax benefits as infrastructure This process may be extended to education, public
bonds enjoy. Such tax rebates are better than either gov- transport and even dwellings. In the case of schools, we
can consider three classes:
Full fees in regular hours;
marginal fees in evening
classes and free tuition
over weekends. Alter-
nately, we can ask (or es-
timate) at the time of
admission what each stu-
dent will be willing to pay.
An admission test is then
held on a need-blind
basis. The merit list and
the fees list can then be
combined to meet the re-
quired income to run the
school with a maximum of
meritorious students.
Harvard operates its ad-
missions in this manner
and has been able to
maintain high standards
of admission for over a
century. The system also
attracts charitable endowments.
ernment subsidies or the government itself operating the
facilities: One, subsidies are subject to political whims of In the case of public transport, we can have, in every
the moment; they are not always objective. Two, when vehicle, a section with standing passengers only where
the government itself runs the institutions, more often fares are nominal or even free. Alternately, no fares may
than not, efficiency suffers. It also becomes difficult to at- be charged during off-peak hours and the number of serv-
tract charity. ices that can be operated during peak hours may be deter-
mined by the number of services operated free during
Tax rebates off-peak hours.
Tax rebates avoid these problems. The sacrifice the gov-
ernment makes in tax collections will be a fraction of the Supply in excess
costs it would have incurred if it had provided the same In the case of dwellings, cost of land is the primary prob-
social services, which, normally is its duty. In other words, lem, not the cost of construction. Typically, the poor oc-
these tax rebates formalise the financial shares of a Pub- cupy a third of the average space. The bottom 30 per cent
lic-Private Partnership in a transparent, non-selective man- needs only ten per cent of the total dwelling space, at the-
ner. most 15 per cent. Many town planners do make such a
provision and yet slums proliferate. It happens because
In general, the hospital can be run as a society, as a trust supply is kept less than the demand.
 CSR 21
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

India will need another 200 million dwellings. In-
stead of waiting for shortages to develop, and then,
organising residential plots, suppose the supply is al-
ways kept in excess of demand. Then, the poor will
not be short-changed so long as their due share of 10-
15 per cent space is kept open for them.
Basically, all these systems operate with separate
supply-demand schedules for different categories of
customers. They operate with one schedule where full
costs are charged, and a separate one at the lower
marginal cost. They are effective where economy of
scale applies but not after the Law of Diminishing Re-
turns sets in.
It is not obvious, but vital, that institutions of this
type must offer world-class service: If they do not, the
rich will go elsewhere taking their surplus and their
charities with them. Politicians rarely appreciate the
importance of maintaining quality. When money is
scarce, they should improve quality; they should start
attracting more and more paying customers. Unfor-
tunately, those who talk of inclusive development al-
most never appreciate this counter-intuitive argument.
Come budget crunch, they sacrifice quality, lose pay-
ing customers and set off an unstoppable downward
spiral. It is no accident that all self-supporting institu-
tions that help the poor, like the CMC, Narayana Hri-
dayaylaya, or Harvard University, offer world class
service.
In brief, inclusive development is not charity; it is
self-sustaining business.

indiresan@gmail.com

The Indian media is surely one of the biggest and most comprehensive of any in the world. The print media
alone consists of over 2,00,000 newspapers and magazines, published in a wide range of Indian languages
and in English. The rise of the regional media matches the economic growth of some of the key regions.

INEPNEXT, the only news agency focusing on EU-India relations, has chosen to work with a media company
based in Kolkata, home to some of the country’s oldest English and Indian language newspapers.
INEPNEXT is a joint venture between the India News in Europe Programme (INEP) and the Kolkata-based
'Brand Next" media organisation. Its aim is to provide detailed information and analysis of EU-India relations
on trade, the economy, science and technology, culture or politics. from Brussels, the home of key EU
institutions and the world's largest news centre.
INEPNEXT aims, in short, to raise the profile of two of the world’s leading soft powers – India and the 27-
nation European Union.
INEPNEXT prepares regular news reports, interviews and analyses for Indian news outlets; it will also
disseminate news and information from India for news outlets in Europe.
INEPNEXT will also be looking at the EU's ties with India’s neighbours : Bangladesh, Pakistan , Nepal and
Sri Lanka and regularly reporting on the activities of the Indian Diaspora in Europe.

For further information, and for a two-week free subscription, please contact:
subscriptions@inepnext.com

Brussels office: Kolkata office:

IPC, Residence Palace, Block C, Room Nr. 02256 FD-121, Salt Lake CityRue de la Loi, 155
1040 Brussels, Belgium Kolkata-700091, West Bengal, India
Tel : 00322-235 22 13 Tel : 009133 - 64175987
www.inepnext. com
22 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

2007 Corporate Social Responsibility:

Interesting Revelations from a Survey
On CSR, an analytical study was made by ten professional survey groups of global fame
in seven countries including India and China. A Pilot Study revealed variations in
the sizes of participation between countries, some following informal
CSR policies, and others not having any policy at all.
N Corporate Social Responsibility, an analytical izations (69%) to participate in corporate social

O study was made by ten professional survey

groups on global fame in seven countries includ-
ing India and China. Called “A Pilot Study”, it brought
responsibility practices.

Organisations that participated in corporate social re-

out some interesting revelations, such as vast variations
in the sizes of participation between countries, some fol-
lowing informal CSR policies, and others not having any
policy at all.
Although four out of five human resource (HR) profes-
sionals across seven countries including India and China,
reported that their organizations partici-
pated in practices that could be consid-
ered as corporate social responsibility,
smaller proportions from each of the
countries reported that their organiza-
tions had either formal or informal cor-
porate social responsibility policies.
Most organizations without corporate
social responsibility policies did not in-
tend to create them. The exception,
among other nations, was China’s plan
to create corporate social responsibility
policies.
Participation
The proportions of HR professionals
who reported that their organisations participated in se-
lected corporate social responsibility practices and activ-
ities varied greatly. Participation in select corporate social
responsibility practices was found to vary within countries
according to organizational staff size, indicating that
availability of resources may affect the types of corporate
social responsibility practices in which organisations en-
gage.
According to respondents in India, large organi-
zations (96%) were more likely than small organ-
sponsibility demonstrated their commitment to such
practices to their stakeholders. About two out of three
HR professionals across each of the surveyed countries
reported that their organisations documented corporate
social responsibility efforts in their newsletters and/or
other publications. Additionally, more than one-half of
HR professionals from each of the seven countries that
participated in the pilot study indicated
that their organizations’ commitment to
corporate social responsibility was inte-
grated with their organisational business
strategy through inclusion in the organi-
sations’ goals and/or mission.
Different practices
HR professionals employed by
medium organizations (94%) in
China were more likely than those
employed by small organizations
(59%) to report that their organiza-
tions participated in practices that
could be considered as corporate so-
cial responsibility.
There are a number of possible explanations for why
rates of participation in corporate social responsibility
practices differ among countries, including availability
of financial resources, issues of work/ life balance and
cultural factors. However, despite the differences in re-
ported participation percentages, it is worth noting
that the two most frequently reported corporate social
responsibility practices—donating/collecting money
for local charities and donating/collecting money for
natural disasters—were the same for five out of seven
countries.

(The ten survey groups which carried out the study were SHRM, AHRI, NHRDN,
HRinIndia, HRA, CIIC, CCHRA, AMEDIRH, COMARI and ABRH)

Corporate Social Responsibility:
Two Exemplary Corporations
SANDHYA RAWAL
CEMEX and GE proved beyond doubt that it is possible to run profitable companies while being
accountable to the community and environment.
ORPORATE Social Responsibility (CSR) is the concept
C that points to organizations having an obligation to
shareholders, customers, employees, communities,
and ecology in every aspect of the operation. It covers all as-
pects of an organization’s operations and can be divided into
daily operations – diversity, community relations, litigation,
moral righteousness, diversity, patriotism, environmental sus-
tainability, and much more.
A few accreditation groups came together to form the In-
ternational Social and Environmental Accreditation and La-
beling (ISEAL), which sets voluntary international standards
and ensures that these social and environmental standards
are widely recognized.
ISEAL Members follow the ISEAL Code of Good Practice
for Setting Social and Environmental Standards. The groups
include the Social Accountability International (SAI), the For-
est Stewardship Council, the International Federation of Or-
ganic Agriculture, the Dutch Max Havelaar Foundation, and
FairTrade. There has been an attempt by the United Nations
to make CSR a global phenomenon by launching The Global
Compact in July 2000. The principles of the Global Compact
address human rights, labor standards, environmental re-
sponsibility and corruption include:
 Businesses should support and respect the protection of
internationally proclaimed human rights
 They should make sure that they are not complicit in
human rights abuses
 They should uphold the elimination of all forms of forced
and compulsory labor
 They should uphold the effective abolition of child labor
 They should uphold the elimination of discrimination in
respect to employment and occupation
 Businesses should support a precautionary approach to
environmental challenges
 Businesses should work against all forms of corruption, in-
cluding extortion and bribery
CEMEX is one of the world’s
largest cement companies.
CEMEX decided to study the
CSR 23
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Sandhya Rawal is a rising
senior at the Bergen County
Academies in the Global
Leadership Exchange, a
program focusing on leadership
and biotechnology. Sandhya
plans to pursue these interests
in college. She enjoys writing,
reading, bioresearch, volunteer
work, and dance.
do-it-yourself home building business that dominated Mex-
ico. The company sent a team of managers to live in the
neighborhoods where the build-it-yourself approach was
popular, in order to take a walk in the shoes of the potential
customers. This exchange resulted in Patrimonio Hoy, a
CEMEX program that makes credit and materials available to
poor, while also offering their expertise to optimize space,
build safely, efficiently, and with little waste or harm done.
The members of CEMEX took less than a third of the time
the average homebuilder in their area takes. The members
also used materials more efficiently due to the advice they
received from the program.
A current and pressing environmental
issue is global warming. In 2005, Gen-
eral Electric announced its greenhouse
gas and energy use goals in an agree-
ment with the U.S. Environmental Pro-
tection Agency (EPA). The 2002 decision
to remove PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls)-containing sed-
iments, a major contributor to toxic waste, from the Upper
Hudson River was the motivation for the deal. In this man-
ner, General Electric (GE) achieved the best performance on
air exceedances ever. (An air exceedance is overstepping the
limit on air pollutants emitted without a required permit.) In
2004 and 2005, GE reduced more than 250,000 tons of
green house gas emissions, the equivalent of removing
nearly 50,000 cars from the road, resulting in US $14 million
in annual energy cost savings.

sanraw@bergen.org
24 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Corporate Social Responsibility:
The Other Point of View
GURUCHARAN DAS
Glib talk about CSR reflects our prejudice against business... A company’s social responsibility
is to make profits legally...Companies should focus single-mindedly on their competence,
providing better goods and services than their competitors.
MUCH admired lady, who was raising funds for
A her NGO, once asked me what I did for a living. I
told her that I worked for a company. “Oh, but
what do you really do—I mean for society?” she said. I
became defensive and began to recount some of our phil-
anthropic activities. ‘Is that all!’ thundered the eminence
grise. CSR has become a buzz word these days, and one
newspaper even has a CSR reporter. But why is it that
something so worthy and high-minded leaves me uneasy?
I think it is because companies have no business engaging
in philanthropy and businessmen don’t value more what
they do.
“The social responsibility of business is to make a profit,”
famously said Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winner. He
explained that in making a profit a company creates thou-
sands of jobs, both directly and indirectly through suppli-
ers, distributors and retailers. It imparts valuable skills to its
employees. It pays crores in taxes. It improves the lives of
millions of satisfied customers with its products and serv-
ices. This is an enormous service to society. If some share-
holders get rich along the way, so what? Companies
should focus single-mindedly on their competence, pro-
viding goods and services better than their competitors,
and not get distracted by extraneous activity. A company’s
social responsibility is to make profits legally, not to harm
nature, and uphold the highest standards of governance.
Promoting goodwill
Yet, I intensely admire individuals who engage
in philanthropy. I was deeply moved by Warren
Buffet’s selfless gesture when he gave away all
his wealth to the Bill Gates’ foundation. I agree
with Andrew Carnegie that to die rich is to die
disgraced. If it is immoral to spend the company’s
money, it is businessmen’s duty to spend their own
money on charity (from after-tax profits). It is a theft
against Reliance’s shareholders if Reliance Indus-
tries builds a hospital, but it is Mukesh Ambani’s
duty to do so. Hence, Tatas do their charity
work through their trusts, from dividends re-
Gurcharan Das is an author and
management consultant.
In 1995, after a 30-year career in
6 countries, he took an early
retirement to become a full-time
writer. He writes a regular Sunday
column for the “Times of India” and
“Dainik Bhaskar” and occasional
guest columns for the “Wall Street Journal,” “Financial
Times” and “Time” magazine. He graduated with honors
from Harvard University in Philosophy and Politics.
ceived from Tata companies. CSR should thus be relabelled
ISR, Individual Social Responsibility, and each of us ought
to feel the need to give back.
This is fine in theory, but the reality is that few Indians
feel the philanthropic urge, which emerges it seems at a
later stage of capitalism. In order that the few sources of
present funding don’t dry up, we cannot allow corporate
funding to cease. We can ensure its legitimacy if companies
fix rigorous criteria for giving. Corporate philanthropy must
enhance company profits, strengthening the brand or pro-
moting goodwill in the community.
Glib talk about CSR reflects our prejudice against busi-
ness. Adam Smith wrote in his Theory of Moral Senti-
ments that he didn’t much care for those who spent their
lives chasing “baubles and trinkets”, but he was “im-
mensely grateful that such creatures abounded for
the whole of civilisation, and the welfare of all
societies depended on people’s desire and
ability to accumulate unneeded capital
and show off their wealth. Indeed, it…first
prompted men to cultivate the ground, to
build houses, to found cities and common-
wealths and to invent all the sciences and arts
which ennoble and embellish human life.” I think busi-
nessmen, in particular, need to understand this and
not get defensive about what they do.

gurucharandas@airtelbroadband.in
 CSR 25
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

But...Tata Lays The Path

The Tata Group’s Jamshedpur social experiment is a laudable example of corporate social
responsibility . Tata Steel pays full health and education expenses for all employees
and runs schools and a 1000-bed hospital in, and around the steel town.

ATA is a window into the M.B.A.s, have all read about Welch, and dismiss many of

T rise of India. While that

rise is often traced to free-
market reforms that began in
his American tactics-from mass layoffs to hostile
takeovers-as violations of the Tata way.

the early '90s, Tata executives
emphasize that even now, the
company grows despite obsta-
cles thrown up by red tape and
special interests. Unlike China's
boom, which was orchestrated
by the state, India's is primarily the story of an enterpris-
ing private sector.
In recent years, as Tata began listing some of its affil-
iates on Wall Street, Americans often compared Tata to
the model-conglomerate they know best: General Elec-
tric. But CEO Ratan Tata, 67, is no Jack Welch. "Certainly
not," he says. Tata executives, many armed with Western
Ratan Tata says his company is not driven to grow
"over everybody's dead bodies." Some 66 percent of the
profits of its investment arm, Tata Sons, go to charity,
and executives make clear they have no intention of re-
linquishing control to Wall Street. At Tata, "corporate so-
cial responsibility," to use the Western buzzword, has
real money behind it.
However far-flung Tata’s markets are, they are near in
spirit to the social experiment of Jamshedpur, the steel
town with a population of 8,00,000 Tata carved from
the jungle a century ago. It still pays full health and ed-
ucation expenses for all employees, and runs the schools
and a 1,000-bed hospital.

Karmayog Wants to Know from Corporates:

 What Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives does your company undertake?

 Do you need any active help or input from NGOs or volunteers or experts to execute /
improve / expand your CSR activities? If so, is there some format in which they can
send their information to you?

 Are there any documented learnings on CSR that you can share?

 Your inputs and contributions (send to info@karmayog.org) would be valuable to us in

providing information on CSR initiatives and activities.

 CSR activities of many companies are listed in www.karmayog.org/funds.ht

www.karmayog.org provides a comprehensive online resource of services,

organisations, people, etc so as to help connect those who are providing services
and resources, etc., with those NGOs and concerned persons who need them.

PM’s Word of Advice to Corporates
“IF those who are better off do not act in a more socially
responsible manner, our growth process may be at risk,
our polity may become anarchic and our society may get
further divided...I invite corporate India to be a partner in
making ours a more humane and just society”.
— Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh
On May 24 Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh addressed
the inaugural session of the
Confederation of Indian In-
dustry’s Annual Summit 2007
at New Delhi. Dr Singh struck
a note of caution for the cap-
tains of industry
vis-a-vis their social responsi-
bilities. The following are ex-
cerpts from the Prime
Minister’s speech.
In a modern, democratic so-
ciety, business must realise its
wider social responsibility. The time has come for the better-
off sections of our society to understand the need to make
our growth process more inclusive-to eschew conspicuous
consumption, to save more and waste less, to care for those
who are less privileged, to be role models of probity, moder-
ation and charity. Indian industry must, therefore, rise to the
challenge of making our growth processes both efficient and
inclusive.
We need a new Partnership for Inclusive Growth based on
what I describe as a Ten-Point Social Charter.
One, have healthy respect for your workers and invest in
their welfare. Unless workers feel they are cared for at work,
we can never evolve a national consensus in favour of much-
needed more flexible labour laws aimed at ensuring that our
firms remain globally competitive.
Two, corporate social responsibility must not be defined by
tax planning strategies alone. Rather, it should be defined
within the framework of a corporate philosophy which factors
the needs of the community and the regions in which a cor-
porate entity functions. This is part of our cultural heritage.
Mahatma Gandhi called it trusteeship.
Three, industry must be proactive in offering employment
to the less privileged, at all levels of the job ladder. The rep-
resentation companies give to SC/STs, OBCs, minorities and
women in their workforce must increase. You must show sen-
sitivity to those who are physically less-abled, in providing a
workplace conducive to their employment. You must employ
retired members of our gallant Armed Forces.
CSR 27
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Four, resist excessive remuneration to promoters and senior
executives and discourage conspicuous consumption. In a
country with extreme poverty, industry needs to be moderate
in its emolument levels. Rising income and wealth inequalities
can lead to social unrest. The electronic media carries the
lifestyles of the rich and famous into every village and every
slum. Ostentatious expenditure on weddings and other fam-
ily events, for example, plants resentment in the minds of the
have-nots.
Five, invest in people and in their skills. Offer scholarships
to promising young people. High rates of growth mean noth-
ing for those who are unable to find employment. We must
invest in skill-building and education to make our youth em-
ployable. Here too, I appreciate the CII's initiative in upgrading
ITIs. This is a very good beginning, as I said, but there is more
to be done.
Six, desist from non-competitive behaviour. The operation
of cartels by groups of companies to keep prices high must
end. Even profit maximisation should be within the bounds
of decency and greed. The private sector should show some
self-restraint in this regard.
Seven, invest in environment-friendly technologies. India's
growth must be enhanced and, yet, our ecology must be
safeguarded for our future generations. Our track record in
resource use is good, but must improve further. Conspicuous
consumption must be reduced not just because it is socially
undesirable at our level of development, but also because it
is environmentally unsustainable.
Eight, promote enterprise and innovation, within your firms
and outside. If our industry has to make the leap to the next
stage of development, it must be far more innovative and en-
terprising. It must try to maintain its competitive edge by in-
vesting in R&D and innovation and promotion of enterprise.
Nine, fight corruption at all levels. The cancer of corruption
is eating into the vitals of our body politic. Corruption need
not be the grease that oils the wheels of progress. There are
many successful companies today that have refused to yield
to this temptation. I commend them, and I urge others to fol-
low.
Ten, promote socially responsible media and finance socially
responsible advertising. Through your advertisement budgets
and your investments in media, you can encourage socially
responsible media to grow and flourish. You can promote so-
cially relevant messages and causes.
This is not an exhaustive list. You may wish to add to it, and
adopt your own Social Charter for inclusive growth. We
must end forever the debate whether our country's
march of progress has benefited India and not Bharat. India
is Bharat.

28 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
China Late in Joining World of
Corporate Social Responsibility
SHA YU
With regard to corporate social responsibility, India and China, the two largest developing
countries in the world, have different approaches and priorities. For China, CSR is a new
concept introduced just a decade ago and recognized in the last two or three years.
NDIAN companies pay a good amount of attention to
I Corporate Social Responsibility. They devote to such
basic social issues as water, health care, education,
livelihood and so on with a sense of commitment. For in-
stance, Satyam Computer Services Ltd. initiated two
foundations in different areas; Satyam Foundation fo-
cuses on urban area while Byrraju Foundation works on
rural area. Chinese companies look inward to improve
labor conditions, and employees’ welfare. The impetus
to CSR development is also greatly different between the
two countries. In China, government took over the role
while in India companies do it.
CSR in China developed in three stages. The multina-
tional corporations (MNCs) initiated CSR campaigns in
the mid-1990s. Aligned with their central office, they ex-
posed China to certain requirements in consumer and re-
tail sectors. Most of Chinese companies received this idea
passively for business cooperation.
Chinese pay attention
In the following years, international organisations and
non-governmental organizations worked to further de-
velop and introduce CSR in China.World Wildlife Fund
(WWF) in China, for example, organises corporate meet-
ing annually, providing an opportunity for the companies
to gain exposure to the idea. These international organ-
izations and multinational corporations, to some extent,
might link trade opportunities with labour conditions.
Consequently, the Chinese government and companies
began to pay attention to CSR. Groups such as the Min-
istry of Labor, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Chi-
nese Enterprise Confederation (CEC) all created CSR
investigation committees.1
Local or state-owned companies just started to under-
stand CSR in the last two or three years. Steadily, they
switched their roles from passive reaction to active par-
ticipation.
At this stage, multinational companies started paying
closer attention to China’s real problems. Take Nike China
Sha Yu is an intern working with the
Byrraju Foundation to learn the best
practices in water management, to
go back to China and implement
them.
as an example, their brand marketing department focused
on China’s most serious ongoing problem – rural migra-
tion. They sponsored a school for children of these fami-
lies, providing them with facilities and helping them learn.
However, when we talk about CSR, companies are not
the only stakeholders. The mass media, government, ac-
ademic institutions, and even the public take responsibil-
ity to supervise, motivate, and stimulate the companies
to discharge their responsibilities.
Survey
In 2006, the first CSR survey was conducted by China
Central Television (CCTV), China Entrepreneur magazine,
Global Entrepreneur magazine and Peking University. The
survey reached the following conclusions, which depicted
the general state of CSR in China.
Most MNCs factor CSR into their companies’ strate-
gies, but the Chinese companies as such seldom do this.
The manufacturing sector, which comparatively has
more capital and assets, practices better CSR. On the
other hand, the manufacturing sector utilizes more social
and natural resources, and therefore, has wide range of
stakeholders. This attracts more attention from civil so-
ciety, which puts greater pressure on implementing CSR.
Classified by ownership, state-owned enterprises pay
more attention to CSR in various aspects, while MNCs
focus more on environmental impact which local pri-
vate companies ignore. Meanwhile, the public under-
standing of CSR was focused on environmental
protection, employee’s interests, product quality, and
after-sale service.

sha_yu@byrrajufoundation.org
1
https://sriworld.com/socialfunds.com/htdocs/news/release.cgi?sfArticleId=6152

Unending Debate on Corporate Social
Responsibility: A UNDP Report
Whatever the interpretations advanced are and the debate that goes on in India about corporate
social responsibility, ultimately, as Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has rightly said at a
recent CII meeting, corporates should “share their benefits with the poor”.
OCIAL responsibility, as has been widely
S stated, is not the exclusive domain of govern-
ments and “passive philanthropy” alone can
no longer constitute CSR. Once this is accepted, a
definition should emerge and CSR agenda is possi-
ble to be globally frozen.
But, as elsewhere in the world, the exercise of in-
terpretation of what Corporate Social Responsibility
is, continues to be diverse and deliberated no end in
India, notwithstanding the fact that CSR has come
to be talked about in the country since three
decades or more. “There are several definitions of
CSR, several perceptions and approaches (adopted
in the country),” says a United Nations Develop-
ment Programme (UNDP) study. Though conducted
in 2002, along with Price Water House and the
British Council, the UNDP Survey report is still con-
sidered the latest and the conclusions, by far, hold
good even today.
What is CSR for Indian Companies ?
The UNDP Survey says: “Several models have been
advanced that attempt to describe how companies
relate to the society. What responsibilities compa-
nies are willing to assume, and what are the societal
expectations from them? The principal underlying
tenets driving the debate are globally uniform but
assume local flavour, based on local socio-economic
and cultural context. In the contemporary era of
global integration, the local flavour in the debate is
increasingly subsumed by the global debate”.
The diversity in definition of CSR is amply re-
flected in the responses received from companies on
their perception of CSR. A striking feature of the re-
sponses is that the respondents are in near unanim-
ity that CSR is very much included in the domain of
corporate action and that ‘passive philanthropy’ is
no longer sufficient in the realm of CSR.
The Principal Objective of the UNDP Survey was
to ascertain the predominant perceptions on CSR in
CSR 29
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
India and the role that companies define for them-
selves. Some 1000 companies were contacted for
responses and of them 102 responded.
Principal Barriers to CSR
The Survey identified some of the “principal barriers
and threats” to adopting CSR and the most impor-
tant of them was lack of an enabling environment
(hindering the process). Absence of a clear linkage
between CSR and financial success is another bar-
rier. This is not to speak of the lack of mechanisms
to measure, monitor, evaluate and report impact of
CSR initiatives.
Many companies see a great future for earning
profits through ethical conduct of business, compli-
ance with regulatory requirements, with emphasis
on protection to environment, and employee health
and safety. A majority of the respondents claimed
that a desire to be a good corporate citizen and im-
proved brand image drive CSR.
Who determines the
CSR Strategy?
94% of the respondents stated (in the Survey) that
management determines the CSR strategy. Over
80% of the respondents attribute the CSR strategy
as being determined by the Board or employees.
Local communities (67% of the respondents) and
shareholders (61% of the respondents) are also
considered to be important stakeholders for strat-
egy determination. Which stakeholders have an
interest in the companies CSR performance ? It is
indicated that nearly 75%, 66% and 59% of re-
spondents believe that employees, customers and
the local community factor in a companies CSR
performance while making their assessment of the
company. Accordingly, one clearly sees the imprint
of these stakeholder interests in the determination
of a company’s CSR strategy.
30 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Salient CSR initiatives taken
by some companies
 Focus on employee welfare in 16 hours away
from work at Tata Steel & Orchid
 Focus on reduction of infact mortality rate,
education, micro-finance and leveraging
technology by ICICI Bank & Tata Steel
 Focus on employee and family health & welfare
at BILT
 Conduct of Environmental Impact Assessment
and Public Consultation for its pipeline projects
in the planning phase demonstrates GSPLs
commitment to integrate environment & safety
concerns from the outset
 Supplementing government initiatives in
education, rural infrastructure, health (mobile
health clinic) and empowerment at Tata Steel
& Orchid
 Adoption of villages to make them fully self
reliant and replication of such model villages
across India –– Aditya Birla Group companies
CSR in Corporate Strategy
Almost all companies include social respon-
sibility in corporate strategy. The four sec-
tions that influence CSR strategy in a
company are, management Board and em-
ployees, shareholders, and local communi-
ties. A sizable number of companies
earmarked resources for CSR as priority.
More than 90% expect to be more trans-
parent in reporting financial information,
63% in non-financial information. They be-
lieve managers of future may be imparted
appropriate skills and sensitivities in main-
streaming of CSR in business schools to help
evolve an agenda for CSR.
CSR Enhances Stakeholder Value
A significant proportion recognised CSR as
the means to enhance long term stakeholder
value. Corporate India within the context of
the above perceptions has set for itself a
minimalist agenda for CSR evidenced in the
emphasis on ethical conduct of business,
transparency in operations and compliance
with laws of the land.
The Survey says CSR is fully integrated
with business at ICICI. “As one of the largest
financial institutions in India, ICICI’s overall
mission has been to build the capacities of
commercial entities and, thereby, enable
them to become agents of economic change.
We believe that building the capacities of the
poorest of the poor to participate in the
economy and society is a natural extension
of this role. With this in mind, ICICI has been
contributing to the social sector for nearly 30
years, mainly by financing and advising or-
ganisations working in the development sec-
tor” says ICICI Bank.
Paradigm shift
Take the case of the Aditya Birla Group.
G.D. Birla, the group’s founder brought ‘suc-
cour to the suffering’ through extensive
charitable work. The late Aditya Birla initi-
ated a paradigm shift when he stated that
charity alone cannot be a long term solution.
Instead, he said, “We should help people in
a way that they are able to stand on their
own feet and earn money continuously. In
this way their livelihood is never at stake”.
His philosophy is best articulated in his fol-
lowing statement “If you give a hungry man
fish one day, he will eat it and the next day
he will be starving again. Instead, if you
teach him to fish, he will never go hungry
during his lifetime.” The group believed in
the trusteeship concept of management,
which entails ploughing back part of its
profit into community.
Kumaramangalam Birla, has enlarged the
group’s CSR commitment by adopting a
‘Triple Bottom Line’ approach to management
where “accountability lies at the heart of the
concept as it involves factoring holistically the
interests of all stakeholders – shareholders,
customers, employees and the community at
large”.


Corporate-backed Community
Enterprises Flourish in Southern India
MUTHU VELAYUDHAM
Promotion of corporate-backed community enterprises for value addition and marketing of farm
produce is an alternative approach. Community enterprises in food, health and energy sectors in Tamil
Nadu, promoted by an NGO, are doing well. This model may be replicated gradually in other states.
ORPORATE Social Responsibility (CSR) was ini-
C tially conceived as a charity to care for the disad-
vantaged social segments of the population.
Today, it is different and may be divided into 3 cate-
gories, as follows.
1.Corporate sponsorship to meet social needs such as
religious places, hospitals or gardens, disaster relief,
and uplift of weaker sections ;
2.Good business practices with futuristic markets in
mind, such as fair trade-labeled products, and eco–
friendly or green-labeled products; and
3.Merging business interests with societal needs
through the public - private partnerships (PPP).
Grocery, clothes, medicines, vehicles, fuel, communi-
cation gadgets etc. are increasingly bought by the rural
masses but are produced and marketed in cities. Selling
consumer goods to the villagers generates employment
for the sales agents. However, consumer costs keep ris-
CSR 31
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Muthu Velayudham
A professionally trained social
worker, Muthu Velayudham is in
the field of social service for last
19 years. He is the founder
President of the Covenant Centre
for Development (CCD) and served
as the Executive Director /
Secretary of the organisation
since 1989. Muthu Velayudham
has a Bachelors Degree in Rural Development Sciences
– B.Sc., and a Masters Degree in Social Work and is an
active member of and contributor in many of the local
and National NGO Networks and Companies. His
Covenant Centre for Development (CCD) is a
decentralized organization, which revitalizes local
economies to impact migration, livelihoods, poverty
alleviation, primary healthcare, nutrition and ultimately
developmental infrastructure.
ing more than rural incomes, causing indebtedness that
haunts 55% of the rural families. Thus, more than 50%
of the farmers abandon farming and flee to cities for
jobs. Such urban migration causes con-
gestion, pollution, slums, crime and inse-
curity in cities.
An alternative approach demonstrated
here is promoting community enterprises
for value addition and marketing of farm
produce. Narrated here is the experience
of 3 Community Enterprises in food,
health and energy sectors in Tamil Nadu,
promoted by the NGO, Covenant Centre
for Development (CCD).
Community Enterprise Model
CCD uses community-based financial
institutions (CBFI) savings as working
capital. CSR grants from such
organisations
 32 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
as Tata and Ford Foundations are used for building and
machinery purchase. CCD project grants are used to-
wards transport and marketing communication ex-
penses, and for expert training fees. CCD also helps
companies to register with community members as di-
rectors and for the initial 2-3 years. CCD staff provides
professional services on a fee basis. Thus external con-
tribution is 4–fold: (a) technology, (b) institution, (c) fi-
nance and (d) market.
Pro-sumer Model
Gram Moolige (village herbs) Company Limited
(GMCL, www.villageherbs.com) was the first enterprise
CCD promoted in the year 2001, to sell raw
drugs collected by poor women from
fallow farms and wastelands in the
lean, non-agricultural, dry season.
Since 2003, GMCL also pro-
duces and markets over–the–
counter medicines, based on
local traditional herbal
remedies in the “Siddha”
system. Today, GMCL
turnover is Rs. 9 million,
80% derived from selling
raw drugs after grading,
cleaning, and packing. It sea-
sonally employs 1,300 women to
gather raw drugs, as well as 100
farmers. 30 women SHGs invested Rs.
1.50 lakh in 2001, won a dividend of Rs. 3.5
lakh and possessed a net share capital of Rs. 5 lakh.
SHGs decide the company’s policies, prices and insur-
ance etc.
Co-creation Model
GMCL’s success motivated British Petroleum (BP) to
partner with CCD and SHGs to tap rural energy mar-
kets. Thus, CCD established Adharam, an energy com-
pany, in 2005. Adharam (www.ccd.org.in/adharam)
sold 3,000 smokeless stoves in drylands around Madu-
rai in the second semester of 2007 and 4 times more in
Marathwada drylands in Maharashtra state, where
SHGs linked to a partner NGO, SSP, (www.sspindia.org)
provided the marketing channel. BP and CCD termed
this business as “co-creation” model. The community
was involved at each development stage viz. concep-
tualization, product design and testing, sales planning
and pricing. This gave community the ownership, and
marketing vigor. BP offered to sell LPG kits which the
community disapproved, and promote smokeless stove
sales. BP bought its patented technology from the In-
dian Institute of Science (IISc) and 15,000 (fifteen thou-
sand) stoves were sold in the 2nd half of 2006 with Rs.
8 million turnover, including fuel pellets from agri-
waste, enriching the farmers. Thus, communities and
corporates “co-created” a business model to tap the
“fortune at the bottom of the pyramid”. The Next Prac-
tices (TNP) company that mooted this notion guided BP
& CCD.
Aharam company
CCD is also promoting the SHG network to procure
and market good quality food products at low prices,
since 2004, under the banner of Aharam, meaning
food. It sells Rs. 500/- worth grocery (pulses, oil, spices,
Fast moving consumer goods) each to 1,000
families with 2 months credit and 90%
recovery by the 3rd month. Its
turnover is Rs. 3 million a year.
Procurement from farmers and
processing and sales by SHGs
employ about 100 commu-
nity members.
CCD will replicate this
model in 6 other states dur-
ing 2008-2010, with CSR
grants. CCD registered
Aharam as a “traditional crop
producers company” in Decem-
ber 2005 under the Companies Act
(2001 amendment) with VAT and export
code. Farmers’ SHG federations own shares and
more federations or SHGs can obtain membership. Its
routine business is managed by professional staff.
For profitability, Aharam sold 25 tons of mango at Rs.
1 million in 2006 and has orders for Rs. 4 million from
Mumbai and Cochin buyers. It also started exports with
“organic” labeled cotton and “fair trade” labeled
mango, with 30-50% premium over the normal market
price. It will soon export “blue labeled” smoked tuna
fish from Lakshadweep islands to SriLanka. The Birla re-
tail chain being set up in metros may procure from
Aharam spices, fruits and vegetables.
Aharam markets dryland, small farmer products such
as maize, mango, tamarind, pulses, honey, forest pro-
duce including herbal products, and fishery products,
including shell crafts of the Tsunami victims. National
Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) schemes for em-
ployment in backward rural areas should invest in these
models.

mdu_ccd@sancharnet.in
www.ccd.org.in

Corporate Social Responsibility:
Contact Database Grows Further
SR Directory now presents more than 2,000
C organisations worldwide. The directory, titled
"Resources for Promoting Global Business
Principles and Best Practices," is a resource
guide to organisations working on all
aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility
in more than 95 countries. The directory is
located at www.csrwire.com/directory
and is managed and edited pro bono by
Michael Kane. CSRwire provides free public
access to this important resource as part of its
work to assist global CSR initiatives.
The CSR Directory is an interactive, web-based tool
that includes contact information for the senior leaders
and websites for each organisation. Searchable by
organisation and key contact, the directory provides
cross-referenced entries in 35 categories and a listing of
all organisations by country. Since the online launch of
the directory in September of 2003, over 1,300
Fighting Corruption in Karnataka: a New Style
s Jayashree, wife of M.N. Vijaya Kumar, an IAS
M officer of principal secretary cadre in
Karnataka state, writes:
My husband is fighting corruption in the
administrative system of the state. As he
is facing harassment for exposing the cor-
rupt practices of the senior officers, and
as the harassment is being silently
watched (or possibly supported) by the
head of the bureaucracy, I decided to
take up his causes and extensively used
RTI Act to expose dereliction of duty on the
part of the topmost bureaucrat in handling cor-
ruption cases.
From September 2006 to February 2007 my husband
has been transferred six times in six months for the stand
he has taken. Without caring for the harassment, he in-
formed the Chief Secretary that he would approach the
CAT and other authorities to ensure requirement of ab-
CSR 33
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
organisations have been added while the existing
contacts and listings were being continually updated.
CSR wire is a leading source of Corporate Social
Responsibility and sustainability, press releases,
reports and news. CSRwire members are
companies, NGOs, agencies and organisations
interested in communicating their corporate
citizenship, sustainability, and socially responsible
initiatives to a global audience through CSRwire's
syndication network and weekly News Alerts.
CSRwire and the SRI World Group technical team have
developed this searchable, online version of the CSR Directory
as a free service to the CSR community.

For more information, contact CSRwire at
director@csrwire.com, Greg Schneider, Director,
CSRwire, 802.251.0110x1108
www.CSRwire.com, and Michael Kane,
Managing Editor, CSR Directory www.csrwire.com
solute integrity in civil services and protection to the whis-
tle-blowers. Recently after taking charge as Regional Com-
missioner, Bangalore he introduced a system under the
Right to Information Act to enable public see files, without
making any application, on second and fourth Tues-
day of every month and planned web viewing of
the files. Public may visit the related
<http://bngregcommr.freespaces.com/> and
<http://nomyslamps.wikidot.com/> for
more information.
The objectives of the website include pro-
viding a platform for public to fight corrup-
tion, create awareness to initiate a
movement for corruption–free ad-
ministration, and share the experi-
ences of using the Right To Information Act in fighting
corrupt practices.

J. N. Jayashree Kumar
E-mail: jnjayashree62@yahoo.com
http://fightcorruption.wikidot.com
34 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Corporate Social Responsibility:
Initiatives and Examples
Anand Corporate Services Limited
Anand has a longstanding commitment to addressing
the needs of the society, in view of its belief that for any
economic development to be meaningful, the benefits
from the business must trickle down to the society at
large.
Anand is of the firm view that the corporate goals must
be aligned with the larger societal goals. 25 years ago, the
SNS Foundation, an expression of Anand’s corporate so-
cial responsibility, was born. The objective of SNS founda-
tion was comprehensive community development. The
Foundation has created programs in the fields of health,
education, natural resource management and life skills
training, only to make sure that fellow humans could
breathe easy.
The long term goal of Anand CSR is to implement con-
cepts like ‘Zero Tolerance Zone for Child Labour’, ‘Zero
Waste Zone’ using strategies like Reduce, Recycle and
Reuse not only at Anand/SNSF locations but extend to
Anand residential areas.
Aptech Limited
Aptech Limited, a leading education player with a global
presence, has played an extensive and sustained role in
encouraging and fostering education throughout the
country since inception.
As a global player with complete solutions-providing ca-
pability, Aptech has a long history of participating in com-
munity activities. It has, in association with leading NGOs,
provided computers at schools, education to the under-
privileged and conducted training and awareness-camps.
Aptech students donated part of the proceeds from the
sale of their art work to NGOs. To propagate education
among all sections of the society throughout the country,
especially the underprivileged, Aptech fosters tie-ups with
leading NGOs throughout the country, including the Bar-
rackpur-based NGO, Udayan, a residential school for chil-
dren of leprosy patients in Barrackpur, established in 1970.
The company strongly believes that education is an in-
tegral part of the country’s social fabric and works towards
supporting basic education and basic computer literacy
amongst the underprivileged children in India.
Avon Cycle Limited
The poor and ignorant of India’s rural population turn
to nearest towns and cities for healthcare. They face in-
difference and exploitation. Hope gives way to despair.
This gave inspiration to AVON for locating MATA
KAUSHALYA DEVI, PAHWA CHARITABLE HOSPITAL.
Mr. Sohan Lal Pahwa, AVON's Chairman and Principal
Trustee of the hospital, spent a good part of his working
life devoted to philanthropy. The hospital, in its 5th year
of inception, has risen to serve a model healthcare facility
boasting of some bold experiments in its very early years
of existence. It’s support since inception has been of the
order of Rs. 3 crore to date and it continues uninter-
rupted.
Reaching out to the needy farther afield, the hospital
holds regular camps in surrounding villages to propagate
scientific approach to healthcare. Recently the hospital
took the social responsibility concept a step further and
formulated a scheme titled 'Celebrated Female Child' to
enable and inspire positive and enduring environment for
society's all–consuming passion for 'sons only' to end.

CISCO System Inc.
Philanthropy at Cisco is about building strong and
productive global communities - communities in which
every individual has the means to live, the opportunity
to learn, and the chance to give back. The company pur-
sues a strong “triple bottom line” which is described as
profits, people and presence. The company promotes a
culture of charitable giving and connects employees to
nonprofit organizations serving the communities where
they live. Cisco invests its best-in-class networking
equipment to those nonprofit organizations that best
put it to work for their communities, eventuating in pos-
itive global impact. It takes its responsibility seriously as
a global citizen. Education is a top corporate priority for
Cisco, as it is the key to prosperity and opportunity.
ICICI Bank Ltd
The Social Initiatives Group (SIG) of ICICI Bank Ltd
works with a mission to build the capacities of the poor-
est of the poor to participate in the larger economy.
The group identifies and supports initiatives designed
to break the intergenerational cycle of poor health and
nutrition, ensure essential early childhood education and
schooling as well as access to basic financial services.
Thus, by promoting early child health, catalyzing uni-
versal elementary education and maximizing access to
micro financial services, ICICI Bank believes that it can
build the capacities of India’s poor to participate in
larger socio-economic processes and thereby spur the
overall development of the country.
The SIG works by understanding the status of existing
systems of service delivery and identifying critical knowl-
edge and practice gaps in their functioning. It locates
cost effective and scalable initiatives and approaches
that have the potential to address these gaps and sup-
ports research to understand their impact. This is under-
taken in collaboration with research agencies, non-
governmental organisations (NGOs), companies, gov-
ernment departments, local stakeholders and interna-
tional organisations.
Infosys Technologies Limited
Infosys is actively involved in various community de-
velopment programs.
Infosys promoted, in 1996, the Infosys Foundation as
a not-for-profit trust to which it contributes up to 1%
PAT every year. Additionally, the Education and Research
Department (E&R) at Infosys also works with employee
CSR 35
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
volunteers on community development projects.
Infosys leadership has set examples in the area of cor-
porate citizenship and has involved itself actively in key
national bodies. They have taken initiatives to work in
the areas of Research and Education, Community Serv-
ice, Rural Reach Programme, Employment, Welfare ac-
tivities undertaken by the Infosys Foundation,
Healthcare for the poor, Education and Arts & Culture.
ITC Limited
ITC partnered the Indian farmer for close to a century.
ITC is now engaged in elevating this partnership to a
new paradigm by leveraging information technology
through its trailblazing 'e-Choupal' initiative.
ITC is significantly widening its farmer partnerships to
embrace a host of value-adding activities: creating liveli-
hoods by helping poor tribals make their wastelands
productive; investing in rainwater harvesting to bring
much-needed irrigation to parched drylands; empow-
ering rural women by helping them evolve into entre-
preneurs; and providing infrastructural support to make
schools exciting for village children.
Through these rural partnerships, ITC touches the lives
of nearly 3 million villagers across India.
Mahindra & Mahindra
The K. C. Mahindra Education Trust was established in
1953 by late Mr. K. C. Mahindra with an objective to
promote education. Its vision is to transform the lives of
people in India through education, financial assistance
and recognition to them, across age groups and across
income strata. The K. C. Mahindra Education Trust un-
dertakes a number of education initiatives, which make
a difference to the lives of deserving students.
The Trust has provided more than Rs. 7.5 Crore in the
form of grants, scholarships and loans. It promotes
36 CSR
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
education mainly by the way of scholarships. The Nanhi
Kali project has over 3,300 children under it. We aim to
increase the number of Nanhi Kalis (children) to 10,000
in the next 2 years, by reaching out to the underprivi-
leged children especially in rural areas.
Satyam Computer Services Limited
Alambana (support) is the corporate social responsi-
bility arm of Satyam Computer Services Limited, formed
to support and strengthen the vulnerable and under-
privileged sections in urban India.
Registered as Satyam Alambana Trust in 2000, Alam-
bana aims at transforming the quality of life among
urban population. Alambana's services are directed pri-
marily at the disadvantaged sections in all the cities that
Satyam has offices in. Volunteers from among Satyam
associates and their family members lead the services
and perform the required tasks.
Tata Consultancy Services
The Adult Literacy Program (ALP) was conceived and
set up by Dr. F C Kohli along with Prof. P N Murthy and
Prof. Kesav Nori of Tata Consultancy Services in May
2000 to address the problem of illiteracy.
ALP believes illiteracy is a major social concern affect-
ing a third of the Indian population comprising old and
young adults. To accelerate the rate of learning, it uses
a TCS-designed Computer–Based Functional Literacy
Method (CBFL), an innovative teaching strategy that
uses multimedia software to teach adults to read within
about 40 learning hours.
Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Limited
The water source for the villages in and around the
Dalmia Cement factory is dependent on rains. During
summer months, the villagers, particularly women folk,
travel long distances to fetch water for drinking and
other purposes. Considering the difficulties and hard-
ship faced by the people, the company, after discussing
with the village elders and concerned Government au-
thorities, took the initiative of making water available
by:
 Providing deep bore wells. So far, 45 bore wells have
been provided in various villages, namely Kallakudi,
Palanganathan, Malvoi, Elakkurichi, Muthuvathur,
Pullabmadi, Edayathankudi etc. Approximately, 300
to 400 people get adequate drinking water from each
bore well.
 Water tanks to store the water.
 Rain and seepage water is harvested in the quarries
of the company is pumped into a tank and supplied
to inhabitants.
44,000 trees were planted and nurtured over a period
of eight years. The presence of large trees and vast
greenery has considerably improved the ecology in the
area.
DCM Shriram Consolidated Limited
Shriram Fertilisers and Chemicals, is a unit of DSCL,
located at Kota, 475 kms. Over the last 3 decades, var-
ious initiatives have been undertaken by the unit, in the
Hadoti region (Kota, Bundi, Jhalawar districts) in ICU,
ambulances, family planning, medical assistance;
schools, scholarships, emphasis on girl child education;
water to people and infrastructure.
Goodearth Education Foundation (GEF)
Work of GEF was initiated in 1996 with a project in
the Rai Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh. The four-year
project covered 63 government schools and benefited
15,000 children. GEF is currently implementing projects
in Thane district, Maharashtra (in 56 schools & bal-
wadis), Alwar District, Rajasthan (this Project is being
implemented in partnership with the NGO Bodh Shik-
sha Samiti, covering 71 schools & balwadis) and Solan
district, Himachal Pradesh (10 Balwadis).
GEF Objectives include providing equal opportunities
in pre-primary& primary education to all children, and
quality of education by ensuring that it is relevant, ef-
fective and activity based.
Hindustan Construction Company (HCC)
HCC plays an active role in CSR initiatives in the fields
of Health, Education, Disaster Management, and Envi-
ronment.
Disaster Resource Network DRN is a worldwide initia-
tive, promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Trained volunteers and equipment resources from Engi-
neering Construction & Logistics companies will com-
plement the existing efforts of Government, NGO's and
International Organizations in disaster management.
It was during the WEF annual meet that the massive
earthquake struck Gujarat in January 2001. The need

for a trained and effective participation from industry
was first felt there. The members of Engineering and Lo-
gistics segment of WEF came together to establish this
network. The idea was further strengthened during the
9/11 incident where again the industry participated in
the relief operations. DRN Worldwide was formally
launched in New York in January 2002. And shortly
thereafter, DRN - India Initiative was launched.
India Aluminium Company Limited
The Women's Empowerment project was initiated by
Indal-Muri in Jharkhand where the Company operates
an alumina refining plant. It was implemented in collab-
oration with an NGO, CARE-Jharkhand. The central
problem this project has attempted to address is the very
low socio-economic condition of the rural and tribal
population of Silli block caused by low agricultural pro-
ductivity, lack of or low cash income, unresponsive
health/ Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)
schemes.
The Project has helped set up around 100 Self Help
Groups so far, which are running successfully with mem-
bers trained in various vocational income–generating
skills, agricultural methods for better yields and health
care initiatives. About 2000 women have been brought
into the fold of this activity helping to improve not just
their own lives but the quality of life of their children and
families as well.
The Indal Women's Empowerment & Child Care proj-
ect employed integrated package of strategies and in-
terventions, such as:
 Establishment and Strengthening of Self Help
Groups (SHG) in 30 strategically selected villages;
 Promotion of Nutrition Gardens and improved land /
agricultural and natural resource management prac-
tices; and
 Creation of demand for improved ICDS/ health
services through Self Help Groups and strengthening
ICDS/ Health Department's service delivery
JCB India Ltd.
JCB India adopted a Government school, in the vicinity
of the company premises as its social responsibility. They
strongly believe that children are the foundation of our
nation and they could be helped, we could build a better
community and society tomorrow. The reason for adopt-
ing this particular school was the poor management of
the school in terms of infrastructure, resources and qual-
ity of education. The company’s commitment to the
CSR 37
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
school goes much beyond just providing monetary sup-
port towards infrastructure and maintenance of school
building.
Larsen & Toubro (L & T) Limited
Considering that construction industry is the second
largest employer in India after agriculture, employing
about 32 million-strong workforce, L&T set out to reg-
ulate and promote Construction Vocational Training
(CVT) in India by establishing a Construction Skills Train-
ing Institute (CSTI) on a 5.5 acre land, close to its Con-
struction Division Headquarters at Manapakkam,
Chennai. CSTI imparts, totally free of cost, basic training
in formwork, carpentry, masonry, bar-bending, plumbing
and sanitary, scaffolder and electrical wireman trades to
a wide spectrum of the rural poor.
As a result of the good response it received in Chen-
nai, CSTI set up a branch at Panvel, Mumbai, initially of-
fering training in formwork, carpentry and masonry
trades. The Manapakkam and Panvel facilities together
provide training to about 300 candidates annually who
are inducted after a process of selection, the minimum
qualification being tenth standard. Since inception, these
two units have produced about 2,000 skilled workmen
in various trades, with about sixty percent of them being
deployed to L&T’s jobsites spread across the country.
The success of this training-initiative demonstrates
that adoption of systematic training techniques are
bound to yield efficient and skilled personnel in the
shortest possible time, and in the power to convert the
potential of the Rural Youth in Construction and upgrad-
ing Rura Economy in a small way.

38 WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Zulieben’s Success Story
JAYANT SHROFF
Given proper support and encouragement, there are millions of women who can stand on
their feet. Share and Care Foundation’s women’s empowerment programme is
designed specifically for such a purpose. Zulieben is a shining example.
met Zulieben for the first time in 1999 in her hut out-
I side the city of Bhuj in Kutch. It was a simple dwelling
made of thatched walls, cow dung-coated mud floor
and a roof made out of palm leaves. This space included
the family sitting area and kitchen as well as the bedroom.
Zulieben and her husband Kaasambhai have two chil-
dren:10-year-old son, Anvar, and 8-year-old daughter,
Nabila. Both children go to a nearby municipal school in
the village. They are first generation learners. Kaasambhai
worked in an iron reclamation foundry while Zulieben
managed the household, working odd domestic jobs when
available. Neither Kaasanbhai nor Zulieben can read or
write.
No livelihood
Kaasambhai was a good father but had a habit of drink-
ing. When drunk, he got into arguments with Zulieben
and abused her. The children were not happy with the sit-
uation but were helpless. Zulieben has no alternative but
to tolerate Kaasambhai’s unacceptable behavior as she
could not leave him because she doesn’t have enough
means to support her children.
Because of the way in which Kaasambhai treated
Zulieben, she was not respected in her family and society.
Besides, Kassambhai wasted a lot of his earnings in drink-
ing and smoking leaving very few funds for sustaining a
normal family life and providing proper nutrition and ed-
ucation for the children. Zulieben was illiterate but came
across as street smart with a lot of wisdom, ambition and
initiative given proper encouragement. Given a loan,
Zulieben would like to start a business of making bricks.
“If I can earn some money, I will first take care of these
children and then work towards normalizing our lives so
that we will not have to worry everyday about our next
meal,” she said.
Zulieben is not alone in her pitiable life saga. She repre-
sents an estimated 200 million village women in rural India
whose talents are untapped. Share and Care Foundation
firmly believes that this talent not only needs our support
but it requires our focused attention to eliminate the gender
gap, utilize the talents, provide self-respect and improve
Jayant Shroff is a successful,
retired telecommunication
executive with 35 years of
rewarding career. He worked in
such important fields as Research
and Development, Product
Management, Marketing, Sales,
Manufacturing, Quality,
Performance Improvement and
Process Management.
He has more than 25 years of
experience of managing a New
Jersey-based charity with a mission to educate needy
youth and empower unskilled women in rural India.
A recipient of several patents, he has published
technical papers and has considerable corporate
management experience.
the future of millions of children like Anvar and Nabila.
Share and Care Women’s Empowerment program is
specifically designed to encourage the millions of
Zuliebens to either start their own small business or to ac-
quire some skills to become economically independent
and stand their own ground. Our Women’s Empower-
ment programs are implemented in partnership with sev-
eral local NGOs.
Self help
Zulieben is a member of one such self-help group,
AMBA. She got her first loan of Rs. 5000/- from AMBA
in 1999 to start her business of making the bricks and
selling them locally. When I re-visited Zulieben in 2001, I
got a hearty welcome from her and Kaasambhai. During
my first visit, I did not meet Kaasambhai, but I could see
that his behavior was completely changed from what I
had heard two years earlier. He now allowed Zulieben to
lead our conversation, supporting her occasionally.
Their dwelling had improved and I was told that both
Anvar and Nabila were doing well in school and had been
reading books. They even joined extra classes to learn
English for computer education. In addition, they both
aspired to pursue college education.
The climax of this visit was when Zulieben talked about

her successes and future challenges. Even though she was
hugely successful in her business, she was not satisfied with
this level of achievement. She talked about her plans to ex-
pand the business in the next two years, explaining that due
to the construction boom in the area, she could not keep up
with the demand under her current manufacturing capacity.
Success story
I was amazed at Zulieben’s understanding of maximizing
utilization of the fixed assets in order to improve the margin.
She was talking about improving the inventory turns with
the same level of fixed assets. Her personal story of success
reinforced Share and Care’s resolve to encourage as many
Zuliebens as we can until we collectively reach the esti-
mated 200 million women whose lives can be enriched
through self-empowerment.
During the past 24 years of its operations, Share and Care
has realized this opportunity in contributing to India’s real
development. Women are learning computer skills, tailor-
ing, embroidery work, stitching, masala-making and many
more skills to either acquire employable skills, start their
Malnutrition Matters Project
Winner of the World Bank
DM Competition
T a conference in Washington DC on May 23,
A the MM project 'Rural Micro-Enterprise in
Orissa' was approved by the World Bank Devel-
opment Marketplace. It was one of twenty-two win-
ners announced out of more than 2,800 original
submissions in the competition. MM Director, Hart
Jansson, the primary developer of the proposal, repre-
sented it at the conference.
The project calls for 20 VitaGoat systems, as well as
two field-trial fruit and vegetable dryers, to be de-
ployed in rural villages, run by women's self-help
groups (SHGs). 75% of the capital cost of the equip-
ment is to be financed with 'mini-credit' from the micro-
finance arm of BISWA, the local partner NGO in the
proposal.
Soymilk produced with the VitaGoats, fortified by ad-
WOMEN EMPOWERMENT 39
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
own small business or form co-operatives and self-help
groups for their own development and their rights. Share
and Care has already witnessed a phenomenal positive
change in the lives of these women and their families. Based
on this experience and others like it, Share and Care has de-
cided to sharpen its focus on this program.
Some 3,800 women of AMBA have gotten an initial loan
of Rs. 5000/- to Rs 10,000/- to start their own business.
These loans are given without any collateral and they carry
an interest rate that they could not get from the regular
bank. The loans are recovered in monthly installments with
full recovery within 3 to 5 years. AMBA is now fully man-
aged by its members like Zulieben who also qualify new
loan seekers.
Won’t you join us in this most cost effective program by
pledging your support for 100, 50 or even 10 Zuliebens?.

For more information about Share and Care
Foundation and its program, please visit:
www.shareandcare.org
ditional micro-nutrients, will provide daily nutrition sup-
plementation to about 16,000 poor children in rural
and village schools. The project will be developed over
a two-year period. With some already-approved, but
very modest government subsidy for the soymilk deliv-
ered (by bicycle) to the schools, the projects will be run
by women's self help groups (SHG's) in micro-enter-
prises that will also provide employment and income to
the workers.
The project is a major extension of the current pilot
program in Orissa, India, supported by Child Haven In-
ternational with funding by Donner Canadian Founda-
tion. Ongoing corporate sponsorship of Malnutrition
Matters is provided by Alpro N.V. of Belgium, and ad-
ditional support is from WISHH (World Initiative for Soy
in Human Health).

Hart Jansson, hjansson@cogeco.ca
40 POLLUTION
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Yamuna River Cleanup Effort by Yamuna

Foundation for Blue Water
SUBIJOY DUTTA, P. E.
The growth in India’s population, followed by massive development in practically all major
cities and towns, calls for a stable water supply and sanitation system to avoid
major health problems and related outbreaks.

HIS voluntary project involves an actual cleanup ef-

T fort, on a demonstration scale in Phase I, to remedy

the massive pollution created by the overland flow
of sewer system effluent from the greater Delhi and Agra
Subijoy Dutta is an environmental
engineer working on solid waste
and water issues in India and the
US since the 1980s. He started the
area in to the Yamuna River in Northern India. A map Yamuna Foundation for Blue Water
showing Cities and Towns in the Yamuna River watershed in 2000 in Maryland to achieve the
is shown on Figure 1. goal of a Clean Yamuna. He is very
Why Cleanup active in Crofton, Maryland, and
Yamuna River? Silchar, India. He has helped in the
growth of the Ramakrishna Dispensary that is serving
A 48-kilome-
the poor in Silchar, Assam. He was awarded a
ter stretch of the Congressional Medal of Honor by the US Congress for
Yamuna River, his voluntary efforts to clean up the Yamuna River.
which flows
through New
Delhi, contains expected to bring the BOD to a level of about 5-10% of
7,500 coliform the current levels.
bacteria per 100
cc of water be- Chronology of Cleanup Effort:
fore entering the Since 1992, the Yamuna Foundation has been attempt-
capital. The Ya- ing to demonstrate various low–cost decentralized treat-
muna receives ment systems which utilize natural systems to clean up the
an estimated drains that bring polluted water into the Yamuna River. In
225 million gal- 2004, an opportunity to demonstrate such a low–cost sys-
lons of untreated tem was made available in Hyderabad by the Jawaharlal
sewage every Nehru Technological University on their campus.
day from the greater Delhi area and leaves New Delhi car-
rying an inconceivable 24 million coliform organisms per Deep Pond Treatment
100 cc or 240,000 coliform bacteria per cc. That same The project consists of an anaerobic, deep pond, which
stretch of Yamuna River picks up 5 million gallons of in- uses a digestion chamber for degrading various types of
dustrial effluents, including about 1,25,000 gallons of DDT sewage sludge and the solids from the influent wastewater
wastes every day. stream. This system has the potential to generate and cap-
ture methane gas for various beneficial uses if the influent
Objective: solids volumes are high.
Many of the expensive treatment plants built to treat
the sewage in Delhi are not removing the pollution load At present the volume of solids flowing into the system
reaching the Yamuna. Hence, our objective is to begin a is quite low and an insignificant amount of methane gas is
demonstration of various cost-effective, decentralized generated at the facility. The anaerobic digestion of the
treatment systems in the greater Yamuna river watershed, solids is expected to keep the solids level at or below 3 feet
for treatment and removal of biochemical oxygen demand from the bottom of the pond and is not expected to in-
(BOD) and coliform bacteria. The proposed systems are crease beyond the bottom 4 feet of the pond.

In similar systems in the U.S. no solids/sludge removal
was necessary for over twenty years of operation. The ef-
fluent is planned to be used for irrigation of orchards near
the treatment facility.
Figure 2 shows the picture of Pond
The effluent wastewater from the student dormitories,
cafeteria, and the administrative buildings enter the Bi-
ological Treatment System pond by gravity flow. The
wastewater from the residential area to the south of the
facility is pumped up from the south side of the Pond the
by a grinder pump.
Benefits
The project met the objective of demonstrating a low-
cost treatment alternative to wastewater by completing
the system construction, adjustments, and monitoring
within $82,800. The cost included some additional items
such as fencing and high-end polishing for removal of
pathogens for agricultural reuse.
For a similar performance and capacity of 10,000 gal-
lons/day in Andhra Pradesh, India, a standard waste-
water treatment system would cost a minimum of about
$450,000. Thus the proposed project has successfully
demonstrated a cost saving of more than 80% over con-
ventional system by use of the innovative system.
This project has demonstrated the use of effluent from
the polishing pond for irrigating the orchard next to the
treatment system. Because of the very low volume of
solids at the intake, there is very little sludge digested at
the bottom of the pond. The modified design involved
recirculation of aerated water from the aeration pond
which provides a high oxygen level in the top part of the
first pond.
POLLUTION 41
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
The system demonstrated reduction of greenhouse gas
(methane) emissions which would have otherwise been
emitted from a conventional treatment plant (due to the
sludge disposal from such plants). The installation of this
treatment system has resulted in the reduction of at least
1128 ft or 8,437 gallons of methane gas, which would
have otherwise been emitted from this
site per day.
Application Deep Pond System
The system is relatively simple to in-
stall and operate. It has only three mov-
ing parts which makes it a very low
maintenance system. Based upon the
available information from the Central
Pollution Control Board (CPCB 2000),
the estimated wastewater discharge to
the Yamuna River from the greater
Delhi area through the major drains is
2,723 Million liters/day (MLD) or 720
Million gallons per day (MGD).
There are about 17 drainage canals
which carry enormous volume of wastewater including
raw sewage to the Yamuna River as she flows South
from the Wazirabad Barrage to the Oklah Dam.
While considering potential treatment alternatives to
treat these wastewater discharges from these drainage
canals, the Deep Pond treatment system (and other bi-
ological systems to supplement the Deep Pond) seems
to have great potential to remove the pollutants with-
out incurring huge costs.
A proposal involving design, installation, and initial
operation and maintenance of a Wastewater Reclama-
tion System (WRS) at the Kotlah Drain site on the east
central side of New Delhi has been submitted to the
Delhi Jal Board (DJB) by the Yamuna Foundation and
others. The cost of the proposed project is estimated
to be 10% of the installation cost of a conventional
wastewater reclamation system for a similar flow vol-
ume (based on DJB costs for existing treatment
plants).
Apart from a stable water supply and sanitation sys-
tem, effective application of the low-cost biological
treatment system installed in Hyderabad on a demon-
stration basis also be considered for many other met-
ropolitan cities and suburbs in India to meet their
wastewater treatment and reuse needs. These steps
can help ward off many health problems.

subijoy@verizon.net
42 PARLIAMENT
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Non-functioning MPs, Indifferent Citizens

C.V. MADHUKAR
While the MPs have a job of "watching" the government, there is also a need for citizens to
watch how their MPs represent them in Parliament.
E V E LO P M E N T proper manner, the MP

D agencies in India
have not ade-
quately leveraged the
can exert pressure on the
government to do better.
If citizen groups can keep
power of engaging with the MP constantly up-
the legislature or the judi- dated on how government
ciary, except in rare in- schemes are being imple-
stances. A classic example mented in the con-
of work on the legislative stituency, the MP may be
side is the passage of the even better equipped to
Right To Information (RTI) Act. Without active and system- take up matters on behalf of his voters.
atic work on the legislative side, this landmark Act would not
have seen the light of day. Now, who can argue that the The Internet provides a useful tool to monitor the perform-
RTI Act is not about development? ance of your MP in Parliament. What issues has the MP
raised as Questions? Has the MP participated in important
Similarly, the Parliament recently passed the Food Safety debates? What stand is the MP taking on certain Bills?
and Standards Act. While it seeks to protect the interest of
the consumer, it also has important implications for food pro- For example, more than half of all MPs in Lok Sabha have
ducers - and this includes the organised food sector, restau- never uttered a single word in Parliament other than raising
rants, and street vendors of food. Of these, the Act has the Questions or adding their name to some debates. Parlia-
largest impact on the livelihoods of street food vendors. A ment spends less than a third of its time on legislation - in this
number of organisations in urban India are already working limited time, did the MPs give adequate time to discussing
with street food vendors on improving the opportunities for important Bills?
the vendors. However, many of these groups did not even
know that Parliament was enacting a piece of legislation that Tracking Parliament
would have a significant impact on their lives. Do these matters have an impact on development? It is
necessary for all citizens concerned with development to be
MPs functions concerned about Parliament. It is not enough to be sceptical
There is a Seeds Bill that is pending in Parliament. A num- about our MPs, as is fashionable to do, especially among the
ber of farmer groups have organised themselves and have educated class of the country. There are a number of MPs
started articulating their views on some clauses in the Bill. who are keen on development issues, and ultimately, it is
This has led the government to also left to the ingenuity of cit-
take their views seriously before C. V Madhukar is the Director of izens to creatively use all the
bringing the Bill for considera- PRS Legislative Research, which resources at their disposal - in-
is currently being incubated by
tion and passing in Parliament. cluding the MPs. In the next
the Centre for Policy Research.
Members of Parliament have His expertise lies in issue, I will explain how a Bill
four broad functions: legisla- Parliamentary Affairs, becomes an Act in India, and
tion, oversight, representation, Governance, Constitutional Law, how citizen groups can make
and approving budgets. MPs Political Management. He worked their voices heard at each
are expected to represent the at the World Bank in Washington stage. Until then, agree that
concerns of their voters in Par- DC with a group focused on parliamentary capacities tracking Parliament is one
in various countries. Madhukar was an Edward S.
liament. more valuable channel to
Mason Fellow at Harvard University, where he earned
a Master in Public Administration degree from the track development.

Where the government is not John F. Kennedy School of Government.
implementing programmes in a madhukar@prsindia.org

Karmayog Plays a Crucial Role in
Resolving People’s Problems
VINAY SOMANI
Many people today feel that once they write or send an e-mail to officials in Government
about problems they face, that is enough to get them addressed.
The reality is, however, far from this. Only external pressure, such as a Court directive or a
calamity-like situation can ensure compliance or immediate action.
HE Indian Government usually cannot and does not act
T on its own to change policies and procedures that have
been set down but which may be incorrect, inappro-
priate, unfair, obsolete and may not even be existing in the
first place, unless there is some external impetus such as a
Court directive or a calamity / disaster situation that require
compliance and immediate action. Many of us cannot under-
stand why this happens, though we know that Government
officials at sufficiently high levels are aware of and extremely
capable of addressing the problem.
The reason for this is that the primary mandate to the Gov-
ernment officials is to implement what is already at hand and
deal with the many pressures and messes that occur along
the way and they are not to really think of policy changes
that need to be made.
The mandate for making policy then falls on another
group of persons whose inputs are used by Government
when policies are framed or changed, and this group includes
academicians, scholars and experts who are co-opted in com-
mittees that are set up for this purpose. Most of these inputs
and the members of such committees, even while represent-
ing the people, turn out to be having views that are often far
removed from reality, or that are sometimes 2-3 years behind
reality, or are with some vested interests, and most often do
not present a complete picture or a true sense of the issues
at hand, and thus the policies framed reflect this in their lop-
sided approaches and outcomes.
Fundamental difference
Even in the implementation of existing policies, some of
which are extremely good, the results are poor, despite the
best intentions of the Government officials at the top, be-
cause the people through whom the plans and policies are
implemented are indifferent, lethargic, corrupt, and most
often, completely incompetent, with no fear of loss of their
job due to non-performance. This is the fundamental differ-
ence between a Government and a Corporate entity, ironi-
cally, while delivering the same services and working at
SOCIAL SERVICE 43
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Vinay Somani is a B.Tech. from
IIT, Bombay, and an MBA from
Harvard. He runs a portal for
Building Stone industry,
www.FindStone.com.
Vinay R. Somani is the trustee of
www.karmayog.org, a website
connecting citizens, civil society
organisations, media, corporates,
and government officials and organisations by online
and offline methods. It acts as a platform and a bridge
to all those Indians who wish to do their bit to improve
their locality, city and country.
comparable levels of complexity.
A corporate entity would have systems and procedures in
place; would make its employees accountable, by making
them perform, or leave their jobs; would have fixed roles and
responsibilities for all its employees; would have Manage-
ment Information Systems in place for tracking operations,
and would be continually open to feedback and response
from its customers and service base.
Story of Karmayog
A website was set up in June 2004 (in the name of Kar-
mayog) to support NGOs and connect them to those who
want to help or support their initiatives.
Karmayog offers Resource Sections on over 100 issues and
causes; provides space for Focus Groups, for issue-specific
groups to take up an issue in detail, and seek to find solutions
and improve the situatioan; offers “Locality Sites” to enable
you to mobilise and stay connected with others in your local
area or community, and address its specific concerns; and en-
ables you to contact and connect with those who can offer
you a solution, or to whom you can offer your help, and the
website is for free.
The idea behind Karmayog launch is not just to get to-
gether to have a common opinion and voice, but rather to
create a space and provide a platform for different voices to
44 SOCIAL SERVICE
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

be expressed and for different people to connect with and
contact each other.
Karmayog’s aim is also to connect those people in Govern-
ment, who are in a position and interested to improve things
but who are isolated from ordinary people and who make
contributions of value in the process of policy making, laying
down of procedures and awareness creation for issues that
affect them.

info@karmayog.org

The Government
of India
provides various schemes and
grants for NGOs and NPOs
KARMAYOG
Example: Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (PMRY)
The PMRY is aimed at providing self-employment to educated unemployed youth of
economically weaker sections and has been in operation since October 2, 1993. The
scheme assists eligible youth in setting up self-employment ventures in industry, service &
business sectors. The scheme covers urban and rural areas.
http://www.karmayog.org/redirect/strred.asp?docId=5920

Details about other schemes and grants can be seen at the

Karmayog site at http://www.karmayog.org/govtschemes/
 SOCIAL SERVICE 45
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Thanks to Infrasys,
Kottapalayam is Out of the Dark
MURTHY SUDHAKAR
Thanks to the social responsibility undertaken by the Bangalore-based InfraSys,
Kottapalayam is today a brightly lit village where women can confidently
walk back home even late night.

OTTAPALAYAM is a neat and tidy village of 50 houses

K laid out in a grid of unpaved roads. They are modest,

functional homes with simple architecture red tiled
roofs and brilliant white walls. It is one of the 10 hamlets of
Murthy Sudhakar’s exposure to
villages began at a young age,
when he accompanied his father
on many of his geological field
Vavipalayam panchayat and is reachable in an hour and half
trips. Later, E.F. Schumacher’s
by bus from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu’s second largest city. “Small is Beautiful”, introduced
him to J.C. Kumarappa and
When, I first visited Kottapalayam in 2004, sunbathed dur- together the two sparked his
ing the day, it was dark at night. Most villages in Tamil Nadu interest in economics,
development, technology and rural India, in particular.
are “electrified”, but being connected to the power grid and After years of reading (and listening to) statistics and
getting predictable power supply are two different things. theories, he has turned his frustrations into action and
Today, 10 photovoltaic (solar) powered street lights serve the founded infraSys, as a commercial enterprise, to work
village. They are owned by the Vavipalayam panchayat, on infrastructure development and income generation
in rural India.
which pays no electric bill for these- with a projected saving
of Rs 300,000/- over the next 20 years.

The process of how this came about is unique and interesting. The initiative for this project came from Sindhanai Sir-
pigal, a local NGO (www.sslindia.org). They introduced infraSys, the Bangalore based company which invests in rural
India, to Jeyabalakrishnan, an enthusiastic Project Officer of Coimbatore District Rural Development Agency (DRDA).

Understanding
An understanding was reached and as per that,the Government of Tamil Nadu would
provide a grant for Rs100,000/- and InfraSys would invest an equal amount and re-
cover its investment with nominal returns in three years. Democratic process and trans-
parency required that this arrangement be approved by villagers and the panchayat.

On January 28th, 2004 the citizens of Vavipalayam in the Gram Sabha (Village as-
sembly) passed a resolution to enter into a contract with infraSys for the solar street
lights. This was finalized at the DRDA office in February and the financing was in place.
Under the DRDA’s guidance the lights were installed in May 2004.

I returned to Kottapalayam in February of 2005, to find the residents very proud of

their street lights. The women now feel confident of walking home from the bus stop
even late at night. What is all the more interesting is, these lights do not suffer from
power cuts.

InfraSys invests in small enterprises in rural India. It brings together necessary infrastructures – physical, know-how
and financial – without which such enterprises neither succeed nor be sustainable.
It seeks collaboration in creating livelihoods and infrastructure in rural areas.
For information visit http://www.infrasys.biz and write to the author at musu-infrasys@sbcglobal.net
46 SOCIAL PARTNERSHIP
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
FEC Initiative Building
Business-Social Partnerships
VENKATESH RAGHAVENDRA & MALINI SEKHAR
There is an increasing trend toward businesses and citizen sector organizations finding ways
to work together. Ashoka has been at the forefront of this creative exploration.
Ashoka is working to create a more enabling environment for the two sectors to
come together and effectively address social challenges.
AN you imagine a roundtable discussion with the
C second largest bank in India and leading social entre-
preneurs intensely engaged in how to address chal-
lenges facing poor communities in rural India? What was
once a rare scenario is now becoming a promising reality.
In a new strategic collaboration, ICICI Bank via its invest-
ments in the IFMR Trust and Ashoka will together pave the
way for the creation of a network of innovative, large scale
for-profit and non-profit enterprises dedicated to creating
market linkages and improving the quality of life for low-
income people. The partnership will also open new oppor-
tunities for ICICI Bank’s development banking initiatives.
Exciting new ways
In recent years, the concept of social entrepreneurship
has inspired a flurry of creative dialogue around how the
business and citizens sectors can do work together that is
mutually beneficial. This one-year pilot collaboration
through Ashoka’s Full Economic Citizenship (FEC) initiative
is a tangible example of the exciting new ways in which
Ashoka (www.ashoka.org) is working with businesses.
With over 1,800 leading social entrepreneurs working in
more than 60 countries, Ashoka is a global organization
dedicated to the vision of a world where everyone is a
changemaker, where each individual has the freedom, con-
fidence and support to address any social problem and
drive change. Over the past 26 years, Ashoka invested in
leading social entrepreneurs who create significant social
impacts around the world. But Ashoka has come to realize
that investing in these Fellows and their innovative ideas
for social change is not enough. Social entrepreneurs must
have supportive networks and structures in society to help
their ideas spread and grow. Ashoka is expanding its pro-
gramming on the group and sector level to help make that
happen. Critical to these interventions are new and hybrid
methods to bring together the powerful tools and resources
of both the business and social sectors to address social
challenges.
Venkatesh Raghavendra is the
Managing Director of Ashoka’s
Global Diaspora Initiative, leading
Ashoka’s efforts to engage
Diaspora communities in the
mission of Ashoka, with the goal
of offering innovative social
entrepreneurial investment and
engagement opportunities. He
has also worked extensively with
Ashoka’s Asia program since
2000. Prior to this, he was Ashoka Representative for
South India. He is the co-founder of The Adventurers,
an outdoor and environmental organization working in
the rainforests of South Western India.
Malini Sekhar is currently on
assignment with Ashoka’s Global
Office working on the Global
Diaspora Initiative and Global
Fellowship efforts. She just
completed her Master of Arts in
Sustainable International
Development at the Heller School
for Social Policy and
Management with Brandeis
University.
Full Economic Citizenship for all
The Full Economic Citizenship (FEC) program was launched by
Ashoka to find new solutions that would enable the two-thirds
of the world living in poverty to have the choice to participate
in local and global economies and be full economic citizens.
To address the lack of access to financial services that 2 billion
citizens in the world face, the FEC initiative has already begun
developing innovative business/social partnerships that are en-
abling “win–win” situations in parts of Mexico. Two pilot proj-
ects in the fields of small-scale irrigation and low income housing
have been launched in Mexico involving communities, leading
social entrepreneurs, and prominent companies in those fields,
and working together to provide products and services to low-
income families. Through this model, companies gain entry into
new markets, communities now have access to lower cost

products and necessary complementary services, and social
entrepreneurs are able to further their social impact and
are provided new sources of funding for their social mis-
sions.
New Financial Instruments for the Citizens Sector
The creation of the Eye Fund I with the goal of reducing
blindness around the world is another way in which
Ashoka is seeking new financial instruments for the citizens
sector. Ashoka has partnered with Deutsche Bank, the In-
ternational Association for the Prevention of Blindness, and
nonprofit eye care intermediaries, to develop a unique in-
vestment opportunity to finance, the expansion of eye
care services in the developing world with near market re-
turns. Social Financial Services (SFS), an Ashoka initiative,
seeks creative and strategic ways to improve access to fi-
nancing and sustaining capital in the citizens sector. Cur-
rently, there are limited financial supports available for
citizen sector organizations to succeed and remain sustain-
able. This new program has been working with leading fi-
nancial intermediaries to educate them about the immense
value inherent in the social sector and assists them to de-
velop new products and services that will enable them to
invest strategically in the sector.
An Open Source Platform for Social Solutions
Rather than simply “surf” the web, individuals and
groups can now exchange and develop exciting new
strategies to provide affordable housing and end corrup-
tion around the world. The emergence of the online
medium as a tool for communication, learning and ex-
change, has given life to new ways to affect social change
and build business-social bridges. Changemakers
(www.changemakers.net), an Ashoka initiative, uses the
SOCIAL PARTNERSHIP 47
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
open sourcing model used by the software community to
develop new software solutions, to open source social so-
lutions ™. Through Changemakers Collaborative Compe-
titions online, innovative social change strategies are
improved, awarded and given global exposure. Competi-
tion themes included addressing issues such as: health care
and disaster response. For example, a grassroots entry will
attract the attention of a major industrial corporation or a
new donor; two other participants will form a partnership;
another innovation will find volunteer support; and yet an-
other will draw thousands of semiliterate farmers to vote
in the competition, using a computer for the first time in
their lives.
Strategic Global Partnerships
Ashoka’s strategic global partners in the private sector
have also enabled a dynamic exchange of talent and re-
sources between the private and citizens sectors. These
partnerships have provided Ashoka Fellows and Ashoka
access to first class management, marketing, and legal re-
sources. McKinsey & Company, the world’s leading man-
agement consulting firm, engages Ashoka Fellows all over
the world in activities such as: strengthening institutional
capacity and strategic business planning. Hill and Knowl-
ton, a distinguished global public relations firm, provides
pro bono marketing and communication services to
Ashoka and Ashoka Fellows. Another strategic partner for
Ashoka is the International Senior Lawyer’s Project (ISLP)
which matches senior lawyers with social entrepreneurs in
need of pro bono legal assistance to scale their work. In
turn, Ashoka shares its vast network and knowledge base
with these businesses and their staff which enabled expan-
sion and transformative experiences.
In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture,
Ashoka Global Academy member,
Mohammed Yunus said, “By
defining ‘entrepreneur’ in a
broader way we can change the
character of capitalism radically,
and solve many of the unresolved
social and economic problems
within the scope of the free mar-
ket.” There is a growing conver-
gence between the citizen and
business sectors that offers op-
portunities and resources to drive
social change. Ashoka will con-
tinue to be an enabling force and
strive to find new ways of bridg-
ing the two sectors.

vraghavendra@ashoka.org
48 NGOs
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Resource Alliance Helping NGOs
in Developing Countries
Resource Alliance is a UK registered charity whose mission is to build the fundraising capabilities
of the non-profit sector worldwide, in order to mobilise support for the sector’s
causes and achieve greater financial sustainability.
T HE Resource Alliance aims to be at the forefront of the
development of resource mobilisation and fundraising
capacity throughout the world by:
 Developing a worldwide network for sharing and devel-
oping skills, knowledge and experience ;
 Building fundraising capacity by providing, and increasing
access to training, education, advice and other learning
opportunities ; and
 Advocating for an enabling environment to encourage
the growth of philanthropy and other forms of support
to enable voluntary organisations to achieve their aims.
Resource Alliance believes that
strengthening civil society requires
that voluntary organisations de-
velop support by actively engaging
with, and being publicly account-
able to their communities. Effective
communications and mobilisation
of support from a diverse range of
sources are vital links in this
process.
To equip NGOs around the world
with the skills, knowledge and re-
sources to mobilise local support,
the organisation provides a variety
of services and activities.
International events
Resource Alliance runs two main international events: The
International Fundraising Congress is Resource Alliance’s
flagship event and began in 1981, growing year on year to
a conference of up to 900 attendees from over 50 countries
worldwide. The event is held every year near Amsterdam in
The Netherlands. The International Workshop for Resource
Mobilisation is an annual global forum, the second largest
event organised by Resource Alliance in partnership with a
local organisation. These Workshops are particularly de-
signed for senior managers and directors of NGOs, interna-
tional NGOs and governmental agencies and civil society
organisations based in the developing economies.
In addition to the two main international events, the Re-
source Alliance also runs Regional Workshops together with
partner organisations in Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe
and Latin America. These Regional Workshops offer a broad
insight into many aspects of fundraising and local resource
mobilisation on a more local level, and also provide a unique
opportunity for fundraisers from the region to meet and learn
from each other.In response to a shortage of quality and sus-
tained fundraising training in the developing world, Resource
Alliance in 2005 launched a number of foundation courses in
fundraising for non-profits around the world.
Resource Alliance currently has two types of courses on
offer: a 1-year part-time, post-grad-
uate course for those already working
in the non-profit sector, taught
through a combination of face-to-face
learning and home-study, and
also an advanced intensive course
aimed at those with non-profit sector
experience, which is taught through
class-room work, presentations, group
work and case studies over 20 days.
In 2004, Resource Alliance launched
the Asia Pacific NGO Awards in part-
nership with Citigroup Asia Pacific, the
only regional competition of its kind to
celebrate and reward the best NGOs/non-profit organisa-
tions. Following the success of the initial programme, the
Awards were run for a second year in 2005.
In May 2006, Resource Alliance set up another Award
programme in India, supported by the Nand & Jeet Khemka
Foundation, which culminated in the announcement of the
Award winners in New Delhi in March 2007.
In 2006, Resource Alliance launched a unique consultancy
service for non-profit organisations seeking to build their
long term financial sustainability, with a primary focus on or-
ganisations working in the developing world.

For more information about these activities,
please visit website: www.resource-alliance.org

Unfortunate Fall of an NGO Titan:
Lessons to learn
DR. BHAMY V. SHENOY
It may be necessary for the founder managing trustee of an NGO to step down after ten or
fifteen years. There should also be a regular rotation of at least one-third of the trustees,
which will give continuity as well as bring in a new perspective.
HERE is not a single e-mail user who has not re-
T ceived offers of millions of dollars from total
strangers in Nigeria. At the same time it is difficult
to find any one who has fallen to such outright scams.
It was a shocking and equally sad news when NGOs
learnt that one of the tall leaders in India’s consumer
protection movement had fallen prey to such a fraud.
That leader is Manubhai Shah, founder and Managing
Trustee of Consumer Education and Research Center
(CERC). Often Manubhai was compared to Ralph Nader
of the US who stood against the mighty General Motors.
Manubhai, who used to go often to Nigeria when
he worked for Arvaind Mills, got an offer from some
one from Nigeria that he is eligible to claim a prop-
erty left behind by one Justine Collins. However, to
process the claim it is necessary to invest about
$1,00,000. It was to pay that amount, Manubhai had
taken Rs. 32 lakh from CERC in early part of 2006.
But trustees did not know about this until three NRI
whistleblowers from the US, who were donors to
CERC and also well wishers of Manubhai informed
them. It must have been a difficult decision for those
NRIs.
Fraud
The three NRI well wishers are Sanat Parikh from
Houston, Texas who had helped Manubhai to start a
sister organization in the US to raise funds for CERC
and to promote INSIGHT magazine and the other
two are Vipin Pujara from Florida and Shrikumar Pod-
dar from Michigan. When Manubhai contacted them
requesting for funds to be wired to Nigerians, they
learnt about the fraud to their utter shock. Some
trustees received an alert from these NRIs and, as a
result, the board promptly took the difficult and, un-
pleasant task of removing Manubhai who had
brought each and every one of them as Trustees.
Later it was found out that it was two employees
(one of them was a trustee) who had signed the two
NGO NORMS 49
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Dr. Bhamy V. Shenoy, an IIT
Madras graduate with a Ph.D in
business administration from
University of Houston, worked for
Conoco in all phases of
International Petroleum Industry
for 21 years, from 1966 to 1987.
He took early retirement in 1987
to return to India to get involved
in India's development. He has been participating in
various NGO activities involving consumer protection,
education and environment. He contested election
twice as an independent. From 1997 till 2003, he was
involved in energy sector reform in former Soviet
Union countries. He is currently an honorary advisor to
the national oil company in Georgia.
cheques one written in April, 2006 for Rs. 10 lakh
and the other for Rs. 22 lakh in June. It is claimed
by some that Manubhai wanted to contribute the
funds he secured from Nigerian property to CERC.
Still it is difficult for many to believe in that expla-
nation for Manubhai to have taken money from
CERC without getting a formal approval from the
board. However, now Manubhai had returned all
the funds with interest and CERC has not lost any
money as a result.
Wakeup call
This unfortunate incident involving the fall of a
titan of consumer NGO has many lessons. Today in
India there are many successful NGOs similar to
CERC rendering yeoman service to India’s develop-
ment. Like CERC they are managed by the founders
under the supervision of a board often consisting of
members recruited by founders. How often will they
question and analyze dispassionately the strategy
proposed by the founder in deference to his great
contribution? Even more importantly, what kind of
system or structure these NGOs have for them to
even monitor the key decisions taken by the
founders?
50 NGO NORMS
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
For example, the board of CERC, which has a large num-
ber of eminent members, did not have the slightest clue till
it was brought to their attention by NRI donors that
Manubhai was indulging in Nigerian fraud and had used
Trust funds for such an activity. From April till November
of 2006, there was at least one meeting of the trustees. If
they did not learn from that meeting that CERC has paid
a huge amount of Rs.32 lakh from Trust accounts to
Manubhai’s personal accounts, it clearly shows that there
were no proper checks and balances in place. This also
raises a question on the responsibility of other trustees re-
garding implementing the appropriate monitoring system
and also their accountability. Can trustees absolve of them-
selves by complaining that they were misled or not fully in-
formed by the managing trustee? Isn’t that what other
stakeholders like the government and donors expect from
eminent board members?
Mandatory
NGOs should make it mandatory for the signing of the
cheques by at least two trustees when it exceeds a certain
limit. At every trustee meeting there should be a report
placed on the latest financial status. The trustees should
ensure that an independent auditor is really independent
and perhaps may even consider changing the auditor
every three years in case of large NGOs. There should be
open communication between the trustees and employ-
ees so that employees can bring unusual or questionable
activities to their attention.
It is more than six months since Manubhai has been
removed from his post at CERC, but there is very little
mention about it either on the web site of CERC or in the
bimonthly Journal INSIGHT produced by CERC. This is
rather surprising. An NGO which expects government
bodies to be transparent and accountable, should have
given all the information it has on this unfortunate inci-
dent and also on corrective steps taken to restore credi-
bility and confidence.
Both Vipin Pujara and Sanat Parikh have attempted to
find out the changes that have been brought about in
the CERC bye laws or the structure to prevent this kind
of situation in the future. They are still waiting to hear.
Most NGOs may not be fortunate in having such dedi-
cated and concerned donors who take time and interest
“If they (companies) believe they are in business to serve people, to help solve problems,
to use and employ the ingenuity of their workers, to improve the lives of people around
them by learning from the nature that gives us life, we have a chance.”
to force better governance. When an NGO has a less
democratic structure of a trust where few like-minded
trustees are in charge, there is a need to have a special set
up to hold them accountable. At least in the case of a
registered society with a large membership, any member
has the right to question the management. The structure
of a trust does not allow such a flexibility.
Unfortunate
It is even more unfortunate that media, which looks
for this kind of sensational news, has done very little to
bring out all the facts. There have been some reports in-
forming the public about the bare details and that too in
only some regions of India. CERC was known not just in
Gujarat, but all over India serving on various advisory
boards of the government of India. No Indian (major)
magazine has published an investigative article, which
could have helped other NGOs in similar circumstances
to wake up. What has happened at CERC should be a
wakeup call.
Manubhai, who started CERC in 1978 and put in 28
years of work, is above 77 years, and did not show interest
to groom any one to take over the reins after him despite
the frequent requests made. In this case also the whole
board failed CERC not by forcing this issue on Manubhai
Shah. By the standards we have for our political leaders
who never retire and also never groom any other except-
ing their own kith and kin, this may sound normal.
It may be necessary for a founder managing trustee to
step down after an initial period of ten to fifteen years.
There should also be regular rotation of at least one-third
of trustees which will give continuity as well as bring new
perspective. Every successful NGO, which is not a one-
man operation, should have regular change in the top
management with clearly defined succession plans. This is
not at all easy, but it is something NGOs should attempt.
Rotary and Lions have succeeded in implementing this
very efficiently. In the end every NGO should be trans-
parent and accountable to the rest of the society.

bhamysuman@hotmail.com
The author wants to thank Sanat Parikh, Vipin
Pujara and Shrikumar Poddar for their valuable
suggestions while writing this article.
— Paul Hawken

Rural Innovations: A Shining example
JS Milker is an example of how mechanisation can change lives for the better.
It removed the tedium of manual milking as well as fetched Palanivel
family more income while helping maintain the quality of milk.
NDIA is the world’s largest producer of milk, with 70 mil-
I lion dairy farmers producing nearly 85 million tonnes of
milk each year. Many are typically landless. For such fam-
ilies, a couple of milch animals are the biggest asset. At the
same time, this group also has dairy farmers who have land,
like A K Palanivel.
Palanivel's residence in Athanur village in Tamil Nadu’s Na-
makkal district offers a beautiful view of the verdant hills that
surround it. At first sight, it seems quite refreshing and idyllic.
Probe and you will discover that livelihoods in Athanur have
not remained as pretty as their natural settings.
Focus on dairying
Palanivel has 10 acres of good land. But
over time, the decline in the availability of
water has changed the cultivation pattern.
Five years ago, the declining water table
forced Palanivel to switch to poultry. He set
up a farm with 10,000 birds. In 3 years, the
water situation further forced him to give up
poultry farming too. Then, Palanivel
switched his focus to dairying. Starting with
3 animals, Palanivel and his wife Amutha
found it worthwhile to increase the number
to 10.
However, even as they were doing this,
Amutha Palanivel started facing the down-
side of dairying. Milking is quite a tedious and time-consuming
task. It takes 15 minutes of labour to milk a local breed.
Amutha started experiencing health problems. When she
milked the cows, she experienced headaches and pain. They
could not look at a conventional power-driven milker because
the cost was far too high and was justified only when one had
20 to 25 cows or more. The situation became so grave that
the couple started to look seriously at the option of selling off
the cows. But, dairying had become their bread and butter.
The couple had 2 sons to educate.
In the middle of this difficult situation, Palanivel chanced
upon the JS Milker. In 2003, he visited Agri Intex organized by
CODISSIA in Coimbatore. There, he saw a machine that was
almost too good to be true. At a price of Rs. 7500/-, the JS
Milker seemed to be just what Palanivel was in dire need of
INNOVATIONS 51
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
immediately, he paid the advance amount of Rs. 500/- and
booked a machine.
In a week's time, the company's representatives landed at
their doorstep with a JS Milker. The team provided the couple
training on how to use it. Initially, the couple was happy with
the Milker. It had relieved them of the tediousness in milking.
Easy to use, the Milker had given them new hope. They even
recommended it to many others. Nearly 20 JS Milkers were
acquired by others.
With time, they got used to the Milker, though they noticed
aspects that were less satisfying and
even frustrating. The Milker had a cen-
tral valve to be released after securing
all the nipples on the udders. This
turned out to be a new problem. Even
as one was put in position and the oth-
ers were being fixed, one of them
would come loose and then they would
have to start it all over again. They re-
ferred this to the company and the
problem was rectified. Yet, while the
Milker was a good-looking machine,
the couple gave priority to sturdiness.
They felt the parts should not be so
fragile that you have to replace them
often.
Big leap
All the same, after getting accustomed to the Milker,
Palanivel made a big leap. He modified it making it power
driven (with a 0.5 HP motor) ! Thus, there was no need for
pumping the lever by hand and building up the required pres-
sure ! Consequently, a good quality can, nipples and the elec-
tric assembly cost just Rs. 10,000/-.
And, the benefits remained. The Milker continued to be
easy to use. Nearly two-thirds of their time is saved. The milk
is hygienic. And, they get a better price for their produce. Yes,
Palanivel records happily that, ever since they started using
the Milker, they have been getting 10-15 paise more per litre
of milk from the milk society. 40 litres of milk a day makes it
4 rupees of additional income every day. Isn’t that more than
welcome ?

52 FUNDRAISING
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

PLEDGE 2007- AN EVENING FOR CHILD RIGHTS

CRY America’s first charity gala under its new name CRY - Child Rights And You America Inc.
RY America hosted its first benefit dinner ‘Pledge for granted – education, healthcare, protection from ex-

C 2007’ under its new name CRY- Child Rights and

You America Inc. in New York on May 2nd, 2007.
Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International was the
keynote speaker, and the co-chairs for the evening were
Meera Gandhi, Goodwill Ambassador for CISRI at the
United Nations and Vikram Gandhi, Head of Global Bank-
ing at Credit Suisse. The main sponsor for the dinner was
Credit Suisse.
Success celebrations
The gala was attended by 200 people from the tri-state
area, Indians as well as Americans who came together to
celebrate the successes that CRY America, its partner
NGOs at grassroots level and volunteers across India and
the US have had in impacting the lives of thousands of
children thus far, and to make future achievements a real-
ity. An estimated $80,000 was raised at the dinner, re-
sources that will be directed towards funding several
initiatives that ensure irreversible change in the lives of
children. Ingrid Srinath, CEO of CRY, a leading child rights
advocate in India, through her presentation on the status
of children in India, explained the reason for CRY Amer-
ica’s name change, from Relief to Rights.
ploitation and abuse. “Unless we address the root
causes of this situation – endemic poverty, gender bias,
class and caste divides and misgovernance – we will
only be scratching the surface of the problem,” she
pointed out.
In his keynote address, Dr. Fareed Zakaria said that
Change in India could only come by getting the civic so-
ciety involved and pressing the government and ampli-
fying the voices like that of CRY.
Shefali Sunderlal, President, CRY America, said that
events, such as Pledge 2006 offered to all the platform
on which “we can amplify our voice and support to the
cause of child rights.”
CRY - Child Rights and You America Inc. is a
501c3 non-profit organization founded in 2002 that
works to restore the basic rights of survival, protection,
development and participation to underprivileged chil-
dren, especially in India. Believing that ‘each one of us
can make a difference’ it works towards creating a
movement that irrevocably changes children’s lives.

According to her, millions of children across India are For information contact: CRY America,
excluded from the rights most American children can take Kreeanne Rabadi, kreeanne@crymail.org

CRY America’s Executive

Committee members, who
attended the event, are:
(from left to right)
Vikram Gandhi, Head of
Global Banking at Credit
Suisse and co-chair for the
event, Meera Gandhi,
Co-chair for the event,
Nandan Maluste,
Treasurer, CRY, Mumbai,
Fareed Zakaria,
Editor of Newsweek
International and keynote
speaker at the event,
Ingrid Srinath, CEO of CRY
and Trustee of CRY America,
and Shefali Sunderlal,
President of CRY America
 CONTEST 53
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Development Gateway Foundation Photo Contest

Deveopment Gateway Foundation is launching a photo contest
open to all of at least 18 years of age.
We are looking for compelling photographs of
socio-economic development in developing countries
Following types of photographs will be accepted:
 The images may show information and communication
technologies helping ordinary people
 The images may reflect people making a product, selling
wares, working in a field, constructing a building or in-
frastructure, or acquiring knowledge
 The images could be abstract ones representing hope,
future, or capacity building
 The photographs may also include images of original art-
work from a developing country. Do not include photo-
graphs of groups of people posing
 Each online entry must include a description ex-
plaining how that image is representative of devel-
opment. Images will be judged on technical excel-
lence, composition, overall impact, and artistic
merit. Each entrant may enter upto three photo-
graphs. Acceptable photo formats are TIFF, JPEG,
GIF or BMP. Photo size must be no larger than
3 mb
 The deadline to submit your photographs is Sep-
tember 21, 2007. The top 10 photographs will be
posted on the Development Gateway Foundation
Website from October 1-8

Winner gets a prize of $ 500 which will be announced on October 9

All visitors to the site will be eligible to vote
Read complete information and enter Photo Contest at:
http://www.dgfoundation.org/news-events/photo-contest.html
E-mail for the Photo Contest questions or inquiries is
photocontest@dgfoundation.org

Catalyst
FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
ACCOUNTS

REVENUE AND EXPENSES FOR 2006

REVENUE EXPENDITURE
(In Dollars) (In Dollars)

Donations: Editorial: 3,477

US Members: 8,726 Printing: 8,467
Indian Members: 1,000
Postage: 4,685
Advertisements: 234 Marketing 1,957
Office (US): 3,753
Travel: 632
Other Expenses: 1,903

Total Revenue: 9,960 Total Expenditure: 24,874

Deficit: 14,914
54 PORTRAIT
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Premji a Crusader for Humane Society

ZIM Hashim Premji is the Chairman and CEO of The belief in Innovation was translated into institution-

A one of the largest software companies in India,

Wipro Technologies, head quartered at Banga-
lore. Worth $17.1 billion and rated as the richest Indian
alizing Innovation at Wipro, and complement the spark
of creativity with methodical, deliberate and sustainable
processes to drive and facilitate Innovation. Wipro was
from 1999 to 2005, and one of the the first Indian Company to embrace
50 richest people in the world from Six Sigma, the first Software Services
2001 to 2003 by Forbes, Premji was Company in the world. Wipro is also
rated in 2004 as one among the 100 the pioneer in applying Lean
most influential people in the world methodologies to Software develop-
by the Time magazine. He was born ment and maintenance with more
on 24 July 1945. than 300 lean projects.

At the age of 21, because of his fa- In the year 2001, the Azim Premji
ther’s sudden demise, Premji had to Foundation was set up with financial
discontinue studies at Stanford Uni- resources contributed by Premji him-
versity in order to take over the fam- self. It is a not-for-profit organization
ily business. However, he managed to with a vision of significantly con-
acquire his Bachelor’s Degree in Elec- tributing to quality primary education
trical Engineering through correspon- for every child, in order to build a just,
dence course from Stanford equitable and humane society. It aims
University, USA. at making a tangible impact on iden-
tified social issues by working in active partnership with
Premji started off in Wipro with a simple vision: to the Government and other related sections of the soci-
build an organization on a foundation of values. Al- ety. This Foundation is dedicated towards Universaliza-
though the company initially dealt in hydrogenated tion of Elementary Education in India as Premji strongly
cooking fats and consumer products, Premji transformed believes that education is the vital element in the devel-
it into a multinational computer software company. opment and progress of our nation. The Foundation’s
Under his chairmanship, the company’s annual revenues focus is on improving the quality of general education
grew up to 2.5 billion USD by 2007. Thus it became the in rural schools and developing world class human re-
world's largest independent Research and Development sources in the field of education. The current programs
Service Provider and the largest Business Process Out- of the Azim Premji Foundation engage 3.2 million chil-
sourcing company in dren in more than 17,000
India. Sathiraju Sankara Narayana schools across India. In Oc-
was born in 1936 at Narsapur, in tober 2006, the Economic
Premji firmly believes Andhra Pradesh, India, completed Times recognized him as the
that ordinary people are his Masters Degree in Economics Corporate Citizen of the
from Loyola College, Chennai and
capable of extraordinary year.
joined the services of All India
things. His fanatical belief Radio in 1963. After working in Premji is a member of the
in delivering value to the various capacities for 32 years, he Prime Minister's Advisory
customer through Innova- retired in 1995 as Station Director, Chennai.
Sankara Narayana hails from a family of artists. His
Committee for Information
tion and Leading-Edge
father was a very creative person and his elder Technology in India. In
Quality processes has led
brother, Bapu is one of the most eminent artists of 2005, he was awarded the
to the emergence of a sys- India and a well known Film Director. Sankara Padma Bhushan.

tem termed as the “Wipro Narayana currently lives in Chennai, pursuing his
Way”. passion for drawing portraits.
apudan_8@yahoo.com

IASPORA Indians —
D On the Philanthropy
Fast-Track traces the ef-
forts of a fraction of the Indian
Diaspora in the Far East, Middle
East, United Kingdom and
United States to “reconnect”
with their home country and be
participants in the social devel-
opment agenda. While the
focus of the book is on philan-
thropic contributions of the Diaspora, it would be im-
possible to do so without tracing the history of the
movement of the Indian Diaspora.
Unlike many other Diaspora communities, Indians
were never forced to leave, but rather were driven by
ambition and went abroad in search of opportunities:
economic or academic. The story of the Indian Dias-
pora is therefore one of grit and merit. It is the story
of a people of immense courage, determination and
success.
Fascinating people who have constructed “imagi-
nary homelands”, and yet for whom the heartstrings
of “Mother India” pull rather forcefully. From the taxi
drivers at Heathrow and JFK, to the Maharajahs of
UK and the cyber lords of the Silicon Valley, the Indian
commitment to the homeland stands out. The repa-
triation of resources ¾ human and capital ¾ and the
philanthropic connection is thus seen across conti-
nents, classes and categories of people.
The book has attempted to profile Non-Resident In-
dians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PIOs) in
these four regions in terms of geography, size and ori-
gins, defining and mapping giving patterns of the Di-
aspora; it also profiles institutions and groups across
the world that are promoting organised Diaspora , as
well as case studies of leaders among philanthropists
who are visionaries.
Diaspora Indians — On the Philanthropy Fast-
Track also attempts to look at “issues” related to giv-
ing back as highlighted by the Diaspora and offers
ideas and solutions to promote opportunities to in-
crease the participations of Indians everywhere in the
development of the country.Diaspora studies are rare
¾ few and far between ¾ and this book hopes to fill
the knowledge gap about Indians that reside across
the globe and their philanthropic contributions.
Gururaj Deshpande, in a thought-provoking Fore-
word powerfully articulates the Diaspora mindset on
philanthropy.

BOOK REVIEW 55
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
RY is recognised inter-
C nationally for innova-
tive fund-raising –
seventy percent of its money
comes from some hundred
thousand donors, each of
whom contributes modest
amounts of money and
sometimes labour and mate-
rial. A recent innovation is
the book “A Poem for
CRY”, published by Penguin India and currently
for sale only in the Indian Subcontinent and Sin-
gapore. Royalties from sales go to CRY-Child
Rights & You.
In 2003, Avanti Maluste and Sudeep Doshi,
privileged kids then at leading high schools in
Mumbai and London, had been volunteers with
CRY projects over a number of years. To support
CRY's fund-raising and awareness building, they
wrote to hundreds of well known Indians (inter-
preting the term broadly) around the world ask-
ing each to say which was his or her favourite
poem and why. One hundred and six responded
ranging from President Abdul Kalam and Profes-
sor Amartya Sen to Sonia Gandhi and (then Prime
Minister) Atal Behari Vajpayee, Amitabh
Bachchan, H.H. the Dalai Lama, Sachin Tendulkar,
Nadir Godrej, Nandan Nilekani and Zubin Mehta.
Why? One clue lies in the concentration of re-
spondents in Mumbai and Delhi: Avanti,Sudeep,
their relatives and friends obviously badgered po-
tential contributors over the months and years.
But also, surely, the mission of CRY resonated
with the contributors. Opportunity for all our
children is one goal all Indians shoot for.
Amartya Sen writes in his thoughtful foreword,
“This is a wonderful collection of poems. The
poems are of interest not only for the merits of
the poems themselves, but also for telling us
some thing about the commitments and priorities
of the selectors. We live not only by our own-
thoughts but also by the ideas and phrases that
resonate and move us”. So get this book. If you
enjoy poetry, the anthology represents almost
every genre of poem; if you enjoy Indian celebri-
ties, here is a unique window into their minds. If
neither, get “A Poem for CRY” to support child
rights and human development..

56 AWARDS
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

2007 Skoll Awards For Social Entrepreneurship

HE Skoll Foundation announced 2007 Skoll measure their role in depleting the world’s

T Foundation Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

for 10 Innovative Social Entrepreneurs. The
recipients, who will each receive three- year grants
ecological asests, a community activist who helps
villages in India run sustainable sanitation
and clean water facilities, a former accountant who
of $ 10,15,000, are organizations that address social is helping replenish
issues in need of urgent attention. the world’s
collapsing fish stocks
This year’s Skoll entrepreneurs include a with an international
former French businessman who is building seafood
networks to prevent abuse of street children, two eco-labeling and
longtime environmentalists whose “Ecological certification
Footprint”enables businesses and governments to program. www.skollfoundation.org

Since its creation in 1987, the 800 new Youth in Action groups that raise an addi-
Escuela Nueva Foundation has tional $1.5 million each year.
RECIPIENTS OF 2007 SKOLL AWARDS FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

strengthened and promoted the

Escuela Nueva (New School) Since 1994, Friends-International
model in Colombia and abroad, has been running projects world-
demonstrating that with the wide for and with street children,
right educational approach, any attempting to reintegrate these chil-
child can achieve high academic dren into society and providing pos-
standards and permanently escape poverty. The Escuela itive alternatives to those who unwittingly or out of
Nueva model now reaches more than 5 million children economic necessity enable this phenomenon, such as
in 14 Latin American countries, Uganda and the Philip- taxis, Internet cafes, restaurants, hotels and tourists. Each
pines and the World Bank has recognized Escuela Nueva year 85,000 children benefit from programs operated by
as one of the most innovative educational programs in Friends-International and partner organizations in Cam-
the developing world. bodia, Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Honduras,
Social Entrepreneur: Vicky Colbert France, Switzerland, the United States and Germany.
Headquarters: Bogota, Colombia Social Entrepreneur: Sebastien Marot
Grant Objective: To support the Escuela Nueva Foun- Headquarters: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
dation’s Smart Scaling Campaign to reach an addi- Grant Objective: To build a financially sustainable
tional 1.5 million children by 2010 through current global network of partners capable of helping
program expansion in Latin America and Uganda and 500,000 street children each year.
by launching new programs in India, Peru, Costa Rica
and Bolivia. To combat humanity’s
consumption of ecolog-
Free The Children – Free The Children ical resources beyond
recognizes the potential of young peo- sustainable limits,
ple to create positive social change. It Global Footprint Net-
works with schools throughout North work developed the Ecological Footprint, a science-
America to educate and empower based tool that graphically shows the depletion of
youths to act locally and globally as ecological assets and helps businesses and governments
agents of change for their peers track impacts and make ecologically sound decisions. The
around the world. More than 500,000 Ecological Footprint is used by Wales, Switzerland and
students have joined the organization’s Youth in Action Japan, and by hundreds of other cities, counties, busi-
groups in 1,000 schools across the U.S. and Canada. They nesses, intergovernmental bodies and educational insti-
have shipped $11 million in essential medical supplies and tutions.
have provided health care projects benefiting more than Social Entrepreneurs: Mathis Wackernagel and
505,000 people. Susan Burns
Social Entrepreneurs: Craig and Marc Kielburger Headquarters: Oakland, California
Headquarters: Toronto Grant Objective: To add 15 national and/or interna-
Grant Objective: To expand in the U.S. and establish tional government agencies using the Ecological
Footprint to the partner network by 2010.
 AWARDS 57
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Gram Vikas (Village Develop- eries are sold in 26 countries. Major companies such as
ment) has developed a holistic Whole Foods in the U.S. and Marks and Spencer and
approach to rural development Sainsbury in the U.K. have stocked MSC seafood, and in
in India that involves entire com- 2006 Wal-Mart announced that it would begin to source
munities, with water and sanitation as the starting point. all its fish from MSC-certified suppliers.
Founder Joe Madiath believes every home must have run- Social Entrepreneur: Rupert Howes
ning water and sanitation before villagers will collectively Headquarters: London
seek a better quality of life through education, job training Grant Objective: To increase market penetration in Eu-
and healthy practices. The program has been imple- rope, strengthen its U.S. presence, expand into the
mented in 289 villages, reaching 22,347 households and Asia/Pacific arena and certify at least eight more fish-
has successfully proven that the rural poor can and will eries by 2010.

RECIPIENTS OF 2007 SKOLL AWARDS FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

pay for better sanitation and water facilities.
Social Entrepreneur: Joe Madiath Engaging workers in a solu-
Headquarters: Orissa, Ganjam, India tions-driven, participatory
Grant Objective: To bring water and sanitation to model, Verité partners with
100,000 families by 2010. hundreds of multinational
brands, sector leaders, fac-
Kashf is a microfinance institution that of- tories, nongovernmental organizations, institutional in-
fers women below the poverty line in Pak- vestors and governments to improve social and
istan a way out through access to financial environmental performance of global supply chains. Verité
services. Kashf began with 15 clients in 1996 currently operates in more than 60 countries in electronics,
and now assists 150,000 clients, with a re- apparel, footwear, food and beverage, and agriculture in-
covery rate of 99 percent. It delivers collat- dustries, among others, with a growing network of staff
eral-free microloans, savings and life and partners. By bringing practical auditing, training, ca-
insurance products through branches that become sus- pability building and research solutions to stakeholders of
tainable within 10 months. Thirty-five percent of its clients the global workplace, Verité improves the lives of global
move out of poverty within three years. factory workers, who often suffer from unhealthy, ex-
Social Entrepreneur: Roshaneh Zafar ploitive working conditions and typically have no leverage
Headquarters: Lahore, Pakistan to effect change. The organization has improved working
Grant Objective: To expand operations to 600,000 conditions directly and indirectly for millions of workers
clients by 2010 in Pakistan’s Punjab and Sindh around the world, delivered training to thousands of fac-
provinces. tories, and improved policy and addressed labor issues
providing protections for millions of workers.
Through a nationally recog- Social Entrepreneur: Dan Viederman
nized model for arts education, Headquarters: Amherst, Massachusetts
vocational training and com- Grant Objective: To strengthen partnerships in dozens
munity development, Manchester Bidwell Corporation of countries and train 1,500 practitioners to replicate
(MBC) has brought higher graduation and college enroll- its model by 2010, with the potential to reach hun-
ment rates and has reduced unemployment for thousands dreds of thousands more workers worldwide.
of young people each year in impoverished urban environ-
ments across the U.S. Since 1984, MBC and its subsidiaries To create a positive
have operated art and recording studios, computer class- future for low-in-
rooms and industrial kitchens, among other facilities, come young people
demonstrating that an inspiring space and state-of-the- who left high school without a diploma, YouthBuild re-en-
art equipment lead to more motivated and engaged stu- rolls them in an alternative YouthBuild school where they
dents. complete high school and build affordable homes for their
Social Entrepreneur: William Strickland neighbors, while transforming their own lives and becom-
Headquarters: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ing responsible citizens and good parents with well-paying
Grant Objective: Support replication programs in six jobs. Each year, YouthBuild programs engage 8,000
cities that will serve 1,800 additional youths by 2009. youths in local programs supported by the national Youth-
Build USA organization in 42 states and produce afford-
Marine Stewardship Council - To able housing for 1,000 low-income or homeless families.
combat declining levels of wild fish Social Entrepreneur: Dorothy Stoneman
stock, Marine Stewardship Council Headquarters: Somerville, Massachusetts
(MSC) offers the world’s only interna- Grant Objective: To build a critical mass of role models
tional seafood eco-labeling and certi- and have 500 YouthBuild students communicate their
fication program, which uses market forces to support experience to audiences of millions, expand the pro-
sustainable fisheries and encourage eco-friendly products. gram and fund a re-entry program for adjudicated
Today 500 MSC-labeled products from 22 certified fish- youths in three states.
58 ESSAY
CATALYST FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Biodiversity For Development

DR. SRINIVASA RAO
“It is now well recognized that poverty and the area of Environment and Sustainable Development by
biodiversity are intimately linked” United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The ap-
— KEMAL DERVIS, proaches taken by these five local communities to create
Administrator, UNDP livelihoods from the biodiversity in their surrounding envi-
ronments are evidence of the sustainable routes. They sug-
IODIVERSITY is defined as “the variability among

B
gest several opportunities that are available in developing
living organisms from all sources, including terres- communities.
trial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the
ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes * In Madagascar, the Village of Andavadoaka demon-
diversity within species, between species and of ecosys- strates how communities can organize to manage a valu-
tems”. India occupies 2.2% of the land, 16% of the pop- able resource, in this case the octopus fishery, so that it
ulation and approximately 8% of the biodiversity in the can provide benefits in the long-run.
world. India is one of the 12 mega * In Bangladesh, Shidulai Swarni-
diversity countries in the world. var Sangstha uses riverboat-based
Of the approximately 80,000 ed- educational resource centers
ible plants that have been used at throughout its Ganges river delta
one time in human history, only to deliver information on sustain-
about 150 have been cultivated able agricultural practices and
on a large scale. Today, a mere 10 market prices.
to 20 species provide 80%–90% * In Guatemala, the women of Al-
of the food requirements in the imentos Nutri-Naturales have re-
world. This trend puts much pres- instated the Maya nut as a staple
sure on the existence of the re- source of nutrition, thereby con-
maining species. Presently, at least serving the Maya Nut forests in
1,000 species are depleted every the buffer zone to the Maya Bios-
year around the world1. phere Reserve.
* In Kenya, Shompole Community
Poor people living in areas with Trust conserves the inimitable
low agricultural productivity, de- vastness and beauty of the grass-
pend heavily and directly on the lands and savannahs to fuel a ro-
forests to support their liveli- bust profit driven ecotourism
hoods. Diversity confers re- venture benefiting the Maasai
silience. A broad genetic base people.
allows crops and livestock to Illustration by Mark Denil, Director, Conservation * In Ecuador, in the Galapagos
adapt to changing conditions. This Mapping/Chief Cartographer, Conservation International, USA UNESCO World Heritage Site,
m.denil@conservation.org
is vital for the poor who cannot af- the women of Isabela Island’s
ford to rely on chemical fertilizers or pesticides which pro- “Blue Fish” Association are marketing a local delicacy, tuna
tect monocultures from disease, pests and soil problems. smoked with guava wood, as a way of promoting alterna-
Poverty and human activity threaten biodiversity and cre- tive use of marine resources and controlling the invasive
ates biodiversity hotspots - regions that have been signif- plant species.
icantly impacted (negatively) and altered by human
activities. The Western Ghats and North East India are rec- Corporations can make use of all the tax incentives to
ognized as two of the twenty-five biodiversity hotspots in support local communities to create livelihoods from the
the world. The destruction of biodiversity signifies the de- biodiversity in their surrounding environments. They can
struction of people’s livelihoods, health and survival in help the projects become successful business while pro-
these areas. viding livelihoods to locals and preserving biodiversity.

The Equator Prize recognizes outstanding local efforts in editor@afhd.org

1
1995 Global Biodiversity Assessment, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).