A survey conducted by indianngos.com revealed that Tatas have spent Rs 150 crore on social services —the highest by any corporate house in the country during 2001-2002. The thrust area was rural development, which includes community health, basic education and vocational training.

The Tatas have three approaches — the Tata Trusts and Tata Relief Committee. R. M. Lala is the director of the former and Sarosh Batliwala is the secretary in the latter. The Tata Council for Community Inititatives (TCCI) is chaired by B G Deshmukh. The TCCI was set up in 1996. It is a small secretariat supported by over 30 Tata companies, explains Mr Anant Nadkarni, general manager, TCCI. It follows guidelines for implementing community initiatives. "A methodical process is underway," he emphasises. About Rs 150 crore is spent every year on vocational training, education — with special emphasis on computer education, health, women and child and integrated rural development programme.

There is a matrix to relay the core competencies of the company with the felt need of the community. The TCCI, after zeroing in on a concern, first invites feedback from the community where the concern is located, then from its own department to know what is possible. "We prefer to have a long-term relationship with people so that we can improve quality of life, build trust and enhance relationships," says Mr Nadkarni.

In order to help Tata companies institutionalise corporate sustainability, TCCI has taken steps to invite nominations to appoint one corporate head-social responsibility in each Tata company who would be responsible to drive the community and environmental initiatives of the respective community. Similar to the process of costing development in social expenditure, Tata companies are encouraged to conduct periodic surveys, institute programmes as part of the annual business plans and budget for this purpose in advance so that these expenses are built into the cost of business similar to any other cost like material, labour and others.

"A major crux of the TCCI is to encourage volunteering by every employee who is interested and willing. There are over 10,000 volunteers across the Tata group over 30 companies," added Mr Nadkarni.