No.1 Lupin: Bharatpur's parallel government

WITHIN Rajasthan's Bharatpur district, wherever Sita Ram Gupta goes, he is mobbed. By villagers, their wives, little children, the sarpanch and other honchos, and so on. Gupta is no politician, nor a film star, nor a holy man, the three classes of people whom villagers typically flock to. This ex-assistant engineer of the Rajasthan State Electricity Board today heads Lupin Human Welfare and Research Foundation (LHWRF), an NGO run by Lupin. Though Lupin does such work in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere in Rajasthan, the scope of its activities in Bharatpur is so extensive that it is often perceived as a parallel government. In the last 14 years since it was set up,
LHWRF has put up 125 schools (either singly or with government help), provided for drinking water facilities in 80 villages and helped 25,000 people cross the 'poverty line'. That explains Gupta's hold over his 'constituency'.

After Lupin trained her in welding, Ramvati, an literate woman, today earns Rs 400 a day.

Yet, it's not as if Gupta has done all this without any government support. In fact, at the heart of Lupin's corporate social responsibility model lies the idea of convergence. "We put in some money, the government some more and the local community that benefits puts in the rest," says Gupta. So far, some Rs 100 crore has been sunk in development projects. Of this, Lupin has invested Rs 10 crore, the villagers Rs 20 crore and the government - both state and centre - the rest. "The private sector, because of its profit orientation, is able to both leverage funds and also use them efficiently," says Subodh Agarwal, Bharatpur collector and district magistrate.

Gupta's model is simple. He first creates a local body at the village level, typically 11-21-member strong depending on the size of the village. The village chooses the members of the local body; it's mandatory to have women and scheduled caste and scheduled tribe representation on it. This local body figures out what is of priority there and LHWRF delivers that. "What's the use of doing a polio eradication programme in a village where the villagers have to travel 15 miles for water?" asks Gupta. LHWRF also insists on another thing - participation of the villagers in whatever projects it executes. It could be money, land or labour, but it has to be something.

It hasn't been easy. In the early days, villagers were unwilling to participate, as they were used to government funds without preconditions. But Gupta - he joined LHWRF in January 1989, barely four months after it had started - says you get actual buy-in from the villagers only when they have shared the responsibility. He is also astute enough to involve all the powers that be - the local administrator, the politician, the village chief, the local cop, and others - in all activities. He also does a little bit of pomp and show at the beginning or the end of a project.

You meet Lakshman Singh, a 58-year-old owner of a bee farm. Before Lupin intervened, he was a poor farmer, making a few thousand rupees a year. Then in 1996, he attended a seven-day course organised by Lupin on bee farming. Gupta helped him take a Rs 10,000 loan from the local bank to buy five honey-combed 'bee' boxes and some sundry instruments. With honey becoming a popular product, Singh's business kept growing; today he makes around Rs 10 lakh per annum, while his customers include companies like Dabur.

While there are only 40 other Singhs, there are many who make Rs 4 lakh-5 lakh from beekeeping alone. Then there are countless others whose wives haven't died during childbirth as Lupin built a road connecting the village to a hospital, and numerous children who have gone to school. These days every politician in Bharatpur woos Gupta to campaign for him. But that's a temptation he has resisted so far.

No.2 Canara Bank: Lending a helping hand

R. Prabha at a sericulture project in Karnataka..

CANARA Bank chairman R.V. Shastri says the bank gets its philanthropic streak from Ammembal Subbarao Pai, the founder, who came from a pretty humble background. So giving back is a part of the bank's culture. In the 1960s, way before nationalisation, the bank gave educational loans to students at soft rates. Today, each of its 47,000 employees donates three rupees per month to a social cause of their choice - Rs 16.9 lakh annually. And that's outside of what the bank spends on CSR annually: roughly Rs 10 crore or 1% of its profits. Employees say its CSR programme goes far beyond what the government mandates for PSUs.

Like Lupin, Canara Bank's CSR projects fall mostly within the ambit of community development. Its main thrust is on giving vocational skills to unemployed people. Canara Bank general manager (priority credit wing) R. Prabha, who overseas the CSR programme, says the trickle-down effect is enormous. Since 1988, he estimates the bank has trained 1.30 lakh people. One big initiative is the Rural Entrepreneurship Development Institutes, where the bank has partnered the Syndicate Bank and the Dharmastala Manjunatheshwara Educational Trust to set up 20 vocational training centres across India. Then there are the projects it does alone - like artisans' training and computer literacy.

Maruti, a 14-year-old boy from Uttar Pradesh, learns to carve wood at the KPJ Prabhu Artisans Training, Production and Marketing Centre at Jogaradoddi near Bangalore. The bank feeds him, clothes him and provides shelter. Maruti isn't sure what the future holds for him. But Radhakrishna, who came out of the centre, could enlighten him. Radhakrishna runs a shop at Bidadi near Jogaradoddi and makes Rs 10,000 a month selling carvings.

No.3 Gujarat Ambuja Cements: No charity please

Motiben (sitting) at the prayag Mahila Mandal milk co-operative in Sandhanidhar

Motiben's self-confidence seems typical of the urban youth in India. Only she is far removed from urban realities - in Sandhanidhar, a village of about 1,800 people in Saurashtra. She is part of a women's self help group, Pragya Mahila Mandal, which earns Rs 1,000 a day from collecting and distributing milk alone. The mandal has done enough sterling work to be noticed by the chief minister; Motiben has met Narendra Modi twice. She says if it weren't for the programme initiated by Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF), she wouldn't have become self-reliant.

Motiben is one of many who have been helped by ACF. A non-profit organisation set up by Gujarat Ambuja Cement (GAC) in 1993 in Kodinar, Saurashtra, it now extends across seven states, touching the lives of 4.5 lakh people in nearly 300 villages.

ACF does not associate itself with 'corporate philanthropy'. Haribhai Mori, senior manager, ACF, says: "Charity... makes the stakeholders of a project complacent. Every project that we have involves some contribution by the stakeholders." Part of the Rs 3 crore-5 crore it mobilises every year comes from GAC and the rest from the government and other trusts.

ACF projects are simple and need-based. So, water harvesting gains priority in Saurashtra, a drought-prone area. The projects also aim at generating self-reliance. In Bhuj, ACF did not 'adopt' any village during the earthquake rehabilitation. Instead, it set up masonry camps so locals could build houses - and have a career option.

Recently, the Gujarat Salinity Cell invited ACF to work with it after ACF cleared 12 wells near the coast of saline water. But ACF's biggest success story is that of Hunny Saini, a mentally-challenged girl. Teachers at ACF's special school in Ropar encouraged her to take up sports. And earlier this year, Hunny won a gold medal in badminton at the Dublin Special Olympics.