As India's oldest planned city looks to reinvent itself, we cast a backward glance at the philosophy that brought it into existence and the commitment that saw it evolve into a model for industrial development

In the last century Tata Steel has developed a skill that few other industrial companies in the world can boast of — it runs one of the best cities in the country.

The company is now becoming even more professional about it. Through the newly launched Jamshedpur Utilities Company (Jusco), it will sharpen this experience and knowledge, and even share it with others.

"We are planning to make the new company as good at managing a town as Tata Steel is in making steel," says Tata Steel's managing director B. Muthuraman. "As Tata Steel expands, there will be at least another Jamshedpur in India, and a few of them around the world. Meanwhile, there is enough to be done here."

The rationale for the new company is to change the structure through which Tata Steel currently provides services in the township. "Our focus is steel and, as we become bigger and bigger, that will grow," adds Mr Muthuraman. "But we also want to emphasise services like town planning and healthcare, so they must become separate entities. Otherwise our spectrum will be too wide to sustain our focus."

It is part of Tata Steel's initiative to plan for Jamshedpur for the next 50 to 60 years. The company has engaged the services of architect Karan Grover from Baroda. "Hopefully, by the year 2007 we will be able to unveil a model of the new town as it will look in the next 100 years. We will keep up the tradition of our founding fathers who envisioned Jamshedpur 100 years ago."

To appreciate the vision of Jamsetji Tata it is important to go even further back in time. By the 1800s industrial towns in England like Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester had a set of problems never faced before anywhere in the world.

The influx of employment-seeking people into these cities had created the need for 'back-to-back terrace housing', in which the only part of the building not connected to another house was the front. The material used for these constructions was the cheapest the builder could find. Toilets were often nothing more than cesspits. Residents either washed with water from a local pump in a tin bath inside their home or, simply, did not wash.

A doctor in Manchester in about 1830 documented what he saw: "Whole streets, unpaved and without drains or main sewers, are worn into deep ruts and holes in which water constantly stagnates, and are so covered with refuse and excrement as to be impassable from the depth of mud and an intolerable stench."

On his trips to England, Jamsetji Tata must have keenly observed the squalor and the inequalities that industry had created. He must have noted the negative impact of a society totally governed by the profit motive. For, while dreaming of the steel plant that could bolster the nation, he also envisioned a sustainable environment in which such a venture could stand. The stalwart of Indian industry believed that "The growth of towns must, I need scarcely repeat, add far more to the sum of national life and national prosperity…"

In a letter to his son Dorabji in 1902 he wrote: "Be sure to lay wide streets planted with shady trees, every other of a quick growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of place for lawns and gardens. Reserve large areas for football, hockey and parks. Earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and Christian churches..."

Today Jamshedpur, run by Tata Steel, is a monument to the founder's foresight and commitment.

"At a time when the concept of town planning was non-existent in India, an architect like F. C. Temple was brought in to help plan Jamshedpur," says Mr Muthuraman. The company archives have some of the manuals originally used in the planning.

Head of human resources Niroop Mahanty recounts that the site was selected because of the proximity of iron ore, coal and water, all three of which were crucial for the steel plant. "But at that time Jamshedpur was just two small villages, Sakchi and Kalimati," he says. "The Tatas needed to bring in almost all the talent required to set up and run the plant. So we had to create a township where everything was brought in by the builders." From this evolved a city that even today is a model for the entire country.

"Jamsetji Tata's philosophy of maintaining townships holds good now more than ever before," explains Mr Muthuraman. "Corporates that had been followers of the quarterly syndrome have fallen by the wayside. It is companies like Tata Steel — which believe in sustainability — that have survived for 100 years. We must realise than an industrial corporation is a social entity first. It is the responsibility of the company to take interest in the welfare of the community. Instead of asking why we are so involved in running the city, other companies should be asked why they are not doing the same."

Jamshedpur now has a population of more than 6.5 lakh people. Only 40,000 of these are employed with Tata Steel. Including those working in other Tata companies like Tata Motors, Tata Robbins-Fraser and Tinplate, about 30 per cent of the residents are directly or indirectly linked with the group.

Tata Steel continues to provide services to both employees and other residents. Says deputy managing director (corporate services) A. N. Singh: "Jamshedpur happens to be more than a company housing colony or even a township. Over the years it has evolved into a city. Everyone residing in it is a subject of interest for Tata Steel, particularly because we provide all the municipal services and utilities."

Tata Steel takes care of the road maintenance, electricity supply, streetlights, healthcare, sanitation, and vector control, making any municipality redundant. Delineating the company's responsibility, Chief of town services Kanwal Midha points out, "More than 15,500 acres of land are with us. The plot on which the works are located belongs to us permanently. The rest includes area used by us directly or indirectly for production purposes, company housing, land leased to other organisations or individuals, and civic amenities like schools, hospitals, parks, roads and sub stations."

Over the years, the pressures of population and growth have added to the administration's concerns. This has been compounded by the fact that the government has not renewed the lease over the area even eight years after it lapsed, because of which unauthorised encroachment around the town has shot up.

The developmental imbalance in the region around Jamshedpur makes the challenge even more formidable. Social inequality can only give rise to conflicts and dissonance. This is why Tata Steel looks after many areas not in its lease-fold. The Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) goes into far-flung villages to provide basic necessities and empower the inhabitants. Tata Steel thinks not only about the people but the environment as well. It has planted about 1.5 million trees in 1999 and 2000 as part of an forestation drive, and continues to add 20,000 to 25,000 trees every year.

Chief of corporate communications Sanjay Choudhry remarks, "Some companies have recently shown us that their bottom line can be twisted and tweaked, and the bubble can burst any time. Steel plants have got into problems like industrial unrest, gone bankrupt and closed down. This is because they did not put back anything into society. Our philosophy has no space for an us-and-them attitude. This has helped us achieve 75 years of industrial harmony. Running a corporation is ultimately about sustainability, about building an enterprise that will stand up by itself."

Uploaded in March 2005