Anand Govindrajan

Being king of the Indian hospitality industry has fetched the Taj Group of Hotels plenty of material success. With the 'Taj in the community' initiative, the group has complemented its corporate achievements with a humane vision that is aimed at helping society's less privileged

You are not here to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand — Woodrow Wilson

‘Social responsibility’ and ‘concern for people’ are among the core values of the Taj Group of Hotels, and these have been translated into action through ‘Taj in the community’. An essential element of this social development initiative, which encourages Taj employees to share their skills with the underprivileged, is that it is rooted in voluntary service.

Under the initiative, the Taj Group collaborates with voluntary agencies to implement programmes that have an impact, measurable and beneficial, on the lives of the underprivileged. This has led the group to focus on programmes that either enhance the services of voluntary agencies, or increase the employment prospects of the poor.

Presented here are some ‘Taj in the community’ initiatives undertaken by various hotels in the group.

Gateway Hotel, Bangalore
A group of 20 employees of the worked with the Movement for Alternatives and Youth Awareness, a non-government organisation, to help female slum residents in the city. The group’s training helped these women learn skills that have made them economically independent. Two specific training programmes were organised, one imparting housekeeping skills for those doing domestic work and another for women interested in the food processing business. Additionally, 12 youngsters youths were trained as plumbers.

The Taj Garden Retreat, Chikmanglur
This is a small leisure hotel located amid the coffee plantations of Karnataka. Volunteers from the hotel are improving the services of Jeevan Sandhya, a shelter for the aged. The housekeeping staff keeps the shelter clean, besides training the Jeevan Sandhya staff in housekeeping duties. The hotel’s laundry department is developing an efficient laundry service for the shelter, and the food and beverages team has assisted Jeevan Sandhya’s kitchen staff in upgrading service and in cutting costs without compromising on quality. The hotel’s gardener has taken charge of greening Jeevan Sandhya environs, while employees of the maintenance department cater to the engineering tasks at the shelter.

The Taj Residency, Bangalore
The Taj Residency has, in association with Fides India, initiated an income-generation programme for six women residents of the M. V. Garden slum in the city. The women were trained in the production of various bakery items and then employed with the Fides India’s programmes on a part-time basis. They also prepare food products at home for sale.

The Taj Bengal, Calcutta
Two employees from the kitchen and housekeeping departments conducted community-training programmes at Dhanpota village. The first session, on low-cost nutrition with an emphasis on hygienic cooking habits, was greatly appreciated by the participants. The session on housekeeping emphasised the value of cleanliness. A boy and a girl, both destitute, are currently undergoing industrial training at the hotel.

The Taj Palace, New Delhi
The core values of the hospitality industry are equally relevant to the healthcare sector. Volunteers from the kitchen, front office and housekeeping departments of the Taj Palace took up the responsibility of training the health workers at the Dr Shroff’s Eye Clinic in the city. The training programme included an orientation session on customer care, where the staff was taught techniques to effectively deal with patients and visitors, telephone etiquette, housekeeping and kitchen management.

The Taj Residency, Aurangabad
The Taj group has worked to provide greater opportunity to youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds by creating in-house training facilities. At the Taj Residency, the kitchen department staff is training two underprivileged boys in food production. They are being given food and boarding in addition to a stipend, and they will be awarded certificates at the conclusion of their 18-month training programme.

The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai
The Taj Salon attached to the hotel is letting beauty do its own talking by training a deaf-mute girl in the trade. She will be awarded a certificate on completion of the two-year training programme. Also, the salon has employed a deaf- mute youngster in the men’s section after six months of training.

The Taj West End, Bangalore
This hotel has also contributed its mite toward community development. The staff of the hotel’s laundry department trained 10 physically disabled persons from the Viswa Chetna Centre for six months.

The Taj Ganges, Benares
The food and beverages department of the hotel trained young boys from SOS, a sheltered township for orphaned and destitute children, in waiting and stewarding skills.

The Taj Residency, Lucknow
Amrit Anand, a resident of Kid’s Home in Kulpahar, and Arjun Uraon, who grew up in the Srimad Dayanand Bal Sadan Orphanage, have been recruited by the hotel as trainee room attendants.

The Taj Mahal, New Delhi
The hotel has adopted an orphaned boy and will offer him industrial training.

These are the small steps that ‘Taj in the community’ has taken to open its doors to the underprivileged and to share its resources with them. In the future, we are looking to working on training projects designed specifically for underprivileged women. The objective is to impart skills that will ensure their economic independence.

With inputs from Samantha Saldnah

Uploaded in January 2002