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Call to tackle `silent crisis' gripping rural economy

SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE: Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons, and Mr Venu Srinivasan, Chairman, CII National Summit on CSR 2007, at the National Summit on Corporate Social Responsibility in Chennai on Thursday. Mr Tata said the salaries of the top brass of the Tata group of companies have never been extravagant, and, therefore, the observations of the Prime Minister (that salaries of heads of Indian companies need not be as high as they are) did not quite apply to the Tata group. — K. Pichumani

Chennai June 14 Mr N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, on Thursday stressed that Corporate India had a major role to play in the rural and social development of India.

Delivering the inaugural address at a seminar on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Mr Ram suggested a number of areas where Indian companies could play that role. The seminar was graced by the presence of Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group of companies

The first he mentioned was the opportunity they had in nourishing higher education. As an example, he said that the top 50 companies in the US gave endowments of about $160 billion to various universities.

Mr Ram noted that while the Indian economy was growing at over 9 per cent, a "silent crisis" was gripping the rural economy, where farmers were committing suicides. He recalled that the Nobel laureate, Dr Joseph Stiglitz, had observed during his visit to The Hindu, that it was a paradox that while the Indian economy was growing well, according to the latest National Family Health Survey, the percentage of underweight children below 3 years of age had not declined at all. On the other hand, the percentage of babies between six and 35 months suffering from anaemia had increased from 74.2 per cent in 1998-99 to 79.1 per cent in 2005-06. Corporate India could do a lot to help tackle this silent crisis, Mr Ram said.

Global warming

He also expressed disappointment over Government's stand on global warming, which was basically on the principle that historical polluters should pay first. Calling this as "not an enlightened stance", Mr Ram said that Indian companies could again do their bit here.

He also stressed on the role that corporates could play in building schools. "I am ashamed that India still does not have a law making primary education compulsory," he said.

Earlier, setting the theme of the conference, Mr Venu Srinivasan, the Chairman of the conference and Chairman and Managing Director of TVS Motor Company Ltd, stressed the need for companies aligning themselves with the environment they worked in.

French connection

Mr Pradipta Mahapatra, Chairman, CII-Southern Region, used the example of an organisation called Le Henokiens, based in France, to illustrate the role of social values in corporate longevity. Le Henokiens is an association of companies that are over 300 years old. To become a member, the company must continue to be run by the same family of the original promoters and must also have been profitable all the years of its existence.

The latest elected Chairman of Le Henokiens is a Japanese company called Hoshi Ryokan, which has been running a chain of inns since 718 AD. The frontage of the inns has a board detailing the principles on which the business is run. The first four principles are: respect nature, fear fire, conserve water and respect society. "None of these principles have anything to do with turnover or profits," Mr Mahapatra observed.

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