Corporate social responsibility

For many Indians, especially from rural India, when it comes to big organizations, it has always been Tata or Birla.

Tata is a name of trust, someone with sound CSR (Corporate social responsibility) values. Today, in every business school around the world, CSR is a mandatory subject. These values were re-iterated by Ratan Tata when Nano was first launched (we can argue about health and environment hazards but that’s a different story). But what is happening in Singur is something that is going against the name of Tata. It is high time they realise how much damage they are causing to their image before they totally lose trust from rural India.

Singur is highly fertile agricultural area and it is alleged that state and Tata have forcibly taken away their land for setting up the Nano plant. In a recent interview, Mamta Banerjee who is backing the protestors clearly highlighted that industry should not grow at the expense of agriculture, which is quite justified. The last thing what India doesn’t want is to lose its agricultural identity. Few years back agriculture accounted for 22% of India's GDP and employed half our country's workforce. Surely one would argue what about new face of India? Can we ignore industrial zones? Answer is 'No'. India is such a vast country and surely we can find enough place for industrialization...you don’t need fertile land to build IT parks or manufacture cars.

The offer made by Singur protestors is quite reasonable. They want Tata to return only 400 acres (out of 1000 acres) earmarked for ancillary units for the Nano car project. In return they are asking Tata and the WB govt to take the 500 acres of land lying just opposite to the Tata's Nano factory.

Certainly this is bad publicity for WB and India but then we all know that in India some drama has to happen especially when the stakes are so high and for the first time I doubt Tata's sincerity and their values.