Vivek Talwar epitomises the commitment that Tata Chemicals brings to its many initiatives aimed at improving the lives of ordinary people. In this interview, the senior manager, HR administration and community development, talks about his work and his passions

Being involved in community development, which calls for interaction with people at different levels, is a source of enormous satisfaction for Vivek Talwar. A senior manager in HR administration and community development at Tata Chemicals’ fertiliser facility in Babrala, Uttar Pradesh, Mr Talwar believes there is no greater sense of fulfilment than seeing the lives of people being transformed over a period of time.

A graduate from the School of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmedabad, Mr Talwar joined Tata Chemicals - his first job - at the company’s chemicals complex at Mithapur in Gujarat back in 1984. Here he was involved in initiating a project for rural development in the surrounding villages. Mr Talwar has used his training at the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing to use satellite imagery as a decision support system for regional development projects.

He moved to Babrala in 1998 to lead a team assigned the task of developing the rural area around the fertiliser plant. He has also been involved with the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) project in Babrala, which uses technology to help farmers with agricultural inputs. Extremely enthusiastic about trekking and angling, Mr Talwar spent a year in Canada as a naturalist.

Speaking here to Sujata Agrawal, Mr Talwar talks about community development activities at Tata Chemicals, his passion for the outdoors and more.

Mithapur — the beginning
When I joined Tata Chemicals at Mithapur, I was involved in building low-cost, environmentally efficient houses for our workers (I had done my thesis on low-cost housing). The company was then setting up its integrated rural development programme and I was given the opportunity to be involved in it. Earlier, the company was involved primarily in relief work but now it wanted to help the community develop socially as well as economically.

Seeing people’s lives improve is very satisfying, but it can also get tricky because quite often, you end up playing God. You hope that your interventions will eventually benefit people, but this may not always be the case. For instance, in Saurashtra, near Mithapur, there is a migrant community called the Rabaris, who move with their cattle towards south Gujarat when there is a scarcity of water. Their women are skilled in traditional mirror-work handicrafts and we decided to develop this skill. It soon became such a good income-generating activity that some of them decided to break the migrating pattern. That’s when I became a little concerned, since I did not know the social or environmental impact of these people and cattle staying on in a region where water resources are low. Fortunately, things worked out fine I learned as I went along. I feel that if your intentions are good you will, by and large, succeed.

Moving to Babrala
The company wanted to build a development relationship with the community at Babrala so a part of the community development department moved from Mithapur to Babrala. In Uttar Pradesh, people are mainly occupied in farming and animal husbandry. The land is quite fertile since this is the Indo-Gangetic plain but the state has, unfortunately, not really developed .

We have development activities in two areas. In the micro-command area, which includes villages around the plant, our activities touch people’s lives in almost every aspect, from education to micro-credit facilities. The 48,000 villages in the district are our macro command area and here we are involved in agricultural and animal husbandry development through the Tata Kisan Kendras (TKKs).

An important initiative that we undertake is ‘Bhoomi Sudhar’, which means wasteland development. Many farmers have ‘sodic’ land, where the alkaline content is high and hence its not cultivable. We decided to help turn this land into fertile fields. We called in a specialist for the technology and set up a project that has been very successful. We have added many thousands of acres to India’s agricultural land mass. In fact, an amount of the land almost equivalent to that acquired for the fertiliser project has already been made fertile.

The importance of participatory development
At Tata Chemicals, we believe in participatory development. The farmer is never given anything totally free, as we feel this does not help in development. A farmer must contribute something, labour, funds or supervision.

For example, we initiated a ‘kharanjia’ (brick-road paving) programme in some villages. We told the farmers that the Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development [the company’s community development agency] would provide the bricks and pay the masons and that the villagers would have to ‘dress’ the earth in the front width of their houses. Their initial reaction was one of shock: how could Tata Chemicals, a big company with so much money, ask them to pay for a part of the project costs? Then I explained the concept of ownership to them. If the company paid for everything, the farmers would not worry if some of the bricks went missing. But if they spent some of their own money, then they would be careful about guarding the bricks. It would be ‘their’ project.

Ownership also helps when the company wants to de-link itself from a project. The farmers are then the project’s complete owners and can bear the responsibility of carrying things forward.

Helping farmers through technology
Agricultural productivity in India is only 30 per cent for many crops and this compares poorly with Egypt or China. The reason is that we are not using agricultural technology. With the size of land holdings decreasing with every generation, technology is the key to getting the maximum out of whatever land is available. We use GIS (Geographical Information System), which helps us make decisions about any agricultural intervention to increase yield. This is implemented at the TKKs, the front end of our marketing infrastructure.

Our aim is to develop a genuine partnership with farmers. We help maximise the land yield by giving customised inputs that are backed by science. And we do this from the information gathered about the farmer and his land: soil properties, agricultural practices, income, literacy levels and so on. GIS actually helps build a database on the farmer and we use this each time he visits a TKK to buy seeds or fertilisers. We offer world-class agronomy services and products for all farming activities, from pre-sowing to post-harvesting.

GIS also helps the TTK agronomist get a list of farmers with whom he can initiate new activities. We started the project in 1999 and it is a unique exercise because of the small size of land holdings. We have completed gathering information from nine districts, which means about 14,000 villages; our target is 48,000 villages. The results of this project will show in the future. The agriculture sector is going to open up soon and, with liberalisation, only companies that provide world-class services can survive.

The average Indian is not a techie sitting in Bangalore; he is farmer with a couple of acres of land. If we can improve his socio-economic condition, there will be a huge jump at the national level. That’s our aim.

Community development — satisfaction guaranteed
For many people, moving from architecture to agriculture is like going downhill, culturally speaking. Architecture is extremely elitist while agriculture is down to earth, literally. The big difference is in the satisfaction you get from having made a difference to the lives of people. In architecture you often design for your critics, or do things that you may not believe in. Community development, on the other hand, gives you enormous fulfilment.

I have been following the progress of some of my village people and it’s amazing to see where they have reached. The happiest moment is when you meet someone with whom you once worked on a participatory development project and realise that he doesn’t need you anymore. I feel sad to let go, though, because there is an emotional attachment.

When we were moving from Mithapur to Babrala, Alka, my wife, and I were given the usual farewell parties. But what gave us the most joy was when the village people paid their way to Mithapur to see us off. We felt we were a part of the community.

Passion for the environment
I used to be a volunteer at the marine nature camps in Mithapur [the Gulf of Kutch is a marine national park]. The officers and their children are very involved with the nature club in Mithapur. They have great programmes like turtle walks, which involves walking at night to locate the nests of green turtles and putting drops of kerosene on the sand so that their scent is camouflaged and predators cannot find and eat them.

Babrala is mainly an agricultural area so there isn’t much scope for holding nature camps. Here we focus on social and community development activities. We are now also involved in environmental activities. There is a famous barrage here, called the Narroda, on the Ganga. It is probably the last abode of an endangered animal called the Gangetic dolphin. We are starting a movement to save this dolphin.

I was extremely lucky to get an opportunity to spend a year in Canada as a naturalist. Four Canadians with whom we became great friends when they came to a nature camp near Mithapur invited Alka and me to Canada to be trained as naturalists. We didn’t have the money but they arranged for that under the Indo-Canadian Environment Project. We worked as naturalists at Rocky Mountain Parks in western Canada for six months, taking people for hikes and giving presentations. We also studied environmental sciences for a semester at Victoria University. We spent most of our time in the outback; we hardly visited any of the big cities.

We squeezed in a lifetime of wilderness experiences in that one year, howling for wolves in the dead of winter (with temperatures at minus 40) and going on helicopter sorties to count Rocky Mountain big horn sheep on the hillsides. I have some great slide shows of our trip, my memories of the best year of my life. Both Alka and I are really thankful to the company for giving us leave of absence.

Angling is my other passion. Unfortunately, I cannot pursue it in Babrala. I also love the mountains and have trekked in the Indian Himalayas. I did the Kailash Mansarovar yatra, 336 km of trekking, where you actually cross the Himalayas.

On being a part of the Tata Group
I am a hardcore Tata person; I can’t see myself working anywhere else. With Tata Chemicals I actually have two roles: working for an NGO, the Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development, and for a corporate, Tata Chemicals. Both are extremely satisfying.

Over the years I have been networking with my colleagues in other Tata companies on community development and it’s a fraternity that I am very proud to be part of. However, I feel the group has not really showcased many of the good projects we are involved with. Maybe it was a virtue to be low profile in the past but today we need to change our perspective. Fortunately, the Tata Council for Community Initiatives has now been set up and it will be the best agency to talk about projects of Tata companies.

I have recently been given the additional responsibility of heading HR at Babrala, which means that time spent in community development is now reduced. Alka is now the process owner of community development in Babrala and I am involved in community development initiatives at the company level in Mithapur and Babrala.

When I was offered the responsibility of HR, I was reluctant to leave community development because that’s where my heart is. But it was important to move on for my growth in the organisation. My seniors convinced me by saying that HR is community development too, in a way. The company has undertaken many HR initiatives in the recent past and I am very bullish about these changes. I know I have an important role to play and am very excited about it.

I see a very great future for Tata Chemicals. Our organisation has gone through changes recently and that has got us all charged up. We all see ourselves as playing important roles in the future of the company.

Should I ever leave Tata Chemicals, I will not work for another company. My dream is to set up a little NGO in the hills and localise myself, use the best methods and the latest technology to develop the place in a sustainable manner.