India Inc honchos, staff in alms race

MUMBAI: Azim Premji is giving $2 billion of his $17 billion, or 12% of his wealth, to fund education programmes. Shiv Nadar has promised 10% of his wealth to philanthropy. Generous and unparalleled as those commitments are, they still leave entrepreneurs like Premji and Nadar with a lot. If giving is measured as a percentage of an individual’s wealth, then a different kind of glow shines on the contributions of some of India Inc’s non-owner CEOs.

AM Naik of L&T has set aside 25% of his stock options — worth `337 crore at Tuesday’s prices — for rural development. “There can be more [funds] if I get good projects,” Naik told ET. Vineet Nayyar of Tech Mahindra has donated a third of his shares in the company — worth over `30 crore — to a charity run by his wife. And, last month, Vineet Nayar of HCL Technologies gave away `42.8 crore to his non-profit.

They are part of a small, but growing, breed of professionals who are loosening their purse strings for those who need it more. The professionals cut across sectors and seniority. So, if CEOs are giving chunks of their personal wealth to non-profits of their choice, employees down to the junior-most level are directing part of their salary to NGOs through payroll programmes. “Indian companies are not totally tuned in to giving yet, but it’s a positive change in attitude,” says Jayanti Shukla of United Way, which partners companies for payroll giving.

Naik, CEO and Chairman of L&T, still remembers the day his father asked him to contribute some money for the expansion of a hospital in their hometown of Kharel, in Surat district of Gujarat.