Trying Hard: India's largest private sector company is making a late but concerted entry into CSR (Pic By Subhabrata Das) It's 1 am on 9 May 2008. The dark sky above the industrial belt in Hazira is barely visible. Thick smoke and fiery ochre flames continuously billow out from the chimneys of Reliance Industries. And it is not the only industry in the area that is polluting the atmosphere. Essar, NTPC and Kribhco are also party to it. The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) has not been able to verify whether the emissions are within the permissible limits. However, it did take action against seven companies for unlawful discharge of wastewater in to Ahmedabad's Khari river in 2006 and 2007. Reliance's Naroda unit was also one of them. Reliance, India's largest private sector company, worth Rs 138,371 crore has time and again faced public outcries. It has been embroiled in controversial complaints and court cases over the marginalization of small investors in the past. It's seen as a company that has managed to ensure that government policies are in its favour at the expense of its competitors. And the ugly public spat over the Ambani empire between RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani and his younger sibling, Anil, took RIL's image to its nadir. Realising this, once Mukesh Ambani gained full control over RIL, he and his wife Nita, made a concerted effort to improve the company's image and embrace corporate social responsibility (CSR). Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani has realised the importance of CSR of late Turnover: Rs 1,34,338 crore Profit: Rs 19,458 crore Per cent of profit spent on CSR (2005-06): 0.4 per cent Key CSR project and its achievements: AIDS-TB treatment centre in Mora village. Serving hundreds of contract labourers, truckers and villagers. Environment footprint: Sea water desalination plant at Jamnagar provides water for one of the largest oil refineries in the world. Community development: Drishti Project, a nationwide corneal grafting drive for underprivileged where funding per surgery is Rs 5,000. Corporate governance: Normal compliance but during crucial events, the details of board meeting agendas and board resolutions are not adequate. (All figures for FY 2007-2008) The Reliance strategy for the task on its hand is to look at ways of making its money in cleaner and greener products, and also becoming socially responsible. It is also investing heavily in the development of alternative fuels and biosciences. "We will use sustainability principles to drive process innovation, new product development, improving manufacturing efficiencies and reducing material and energy consumption,' says Mukesh. To undo the damage to the environment, it is reducing its carbon footprint, curbing emissions, treating effluents and recycling water and waste. For a more human face, the hydrocarbon company has decided to develop corporate-community partnerships in which his wife, Nita, is deeply involved. "We work towards improving the quality of life of the people who are with us and around us,' she says. For every Rs 100 that Reliance earned in profits in 2005-06, it spent 40 paise on community initiatives. Even 20 years ago, at the time when Reliance's Hazira unit was being built, the founder of the Relaince Group, late Dhirubhai Ambani invited executive director Hardev Singh Kohli to join it. "He told me to ensure that if the villagers around Hazira face any problem, the company should take care of it,' Kohli recalls. Medical Help Nine years ago, the company built the Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital at Lodhivali, near the old Bombay-Pune highway, to dispense free and subsidised health services. The hospital has so far treated 2,000 accident-trauma cases and treated 5,500 villagers for free, besides providing subsidised treatment to another 20,000. At Mora village, near its Hazira petrochemical plant in Surat, Reliance runs a well-equipped health centre. The centre treated 2,000 patients for AIDS, 1,600 infected with sexually transmitted diseases and dispensed therapies for tuberculosis to 300 others. Other companies' CSR initiatives covering AIDS are limited to spreading awareness about and the prevention of the deadly disease, but Reliance goes beyond to fund treatments. As in the case of 28-year-old Amisha (name changed) who was brought to the health centre by one of the centre's partner NGO in March this year. "I am feeling much better,' says Amisha, who was treated for TB pleural effusion and AIDS complex by Reliance's chief medical officer, Dr Ashok Mewara. "I want to be a nurse so that I too can serve here,' says Amisha, whom Reliance has hired as a cook at the centre. The company is duplicating the Hazira model at its Jamnagar plant in Saurashtra and Patalganga. To fund corneal transplant surgeries, the company has also tied up with the National Association for the Blind (NAB). At Rs 5,000 per surgery, it has restored sight for nearly 5,600 people. NAB's honorary secretary Dinoo Gandhi says, "Though we have tie-ups with various eye institutes in 38 towns and cities, without Reliance's support we would not have succeeded in reaching out to so many people. Normally, NGOs run after companies for donations but, in this case, it is Reliance that is after me to ensure we reach out to as many people as possible.' Environment-friendly In Surat, it constructed a school for the Disable Welfare Trust of India (DWTI) two years ago. The school has provided free education to 450 disabled children from slums and underprivileged communities and is extending classes to 12th standard. DWTI's president Kanubhai Tailor says, "This will open the door to higher education for 45 students a year.' Reliance is also working to undo the damage it has done to the environment. In the mid-90s, it contributed to the Rs 30-crore Wier-cum-Causeway dam on upstream Tapi, the water source for industrial Hazira, putting an end to the diversion of farm water through an irrigation canal. Now it has started a project with rag pickers in Hazira for recycling non-biodegradable PET bottles sourced from them into a fluffy fibre used as pillow filling. This process is augmenting local incomes and reducing company costs. New green technologies have helped RIL cut emissions of harmful gases at its plants by 1-3 per cent, according to its Corporate Sustainibility Report for 2005-06. The reverse osmosis plant at Jamnagar has cut water consumption there by 3 per cent and hazardous waster generation by 26 per cent. Is This Enough Will Reliance succeed in cleaning up its image with these efforts? The carbon footprint shrinkage and success in environment projects of the largest Indian private sector company are still not very high. "Petrochemical plants, such as Reliance, can become a zero-effluent discharing unit and meet minimal national standards,' says Vinay Bharadwaj, director, green technology funding entity Green Ventures India. "The real risk is: what a single mishap can do,' says Surat-based NGO, Prayas Team Environment India's founder Darshan Desai. "Scores of small dyeing and printing units care also discharging toxic effluents in the Tapi and Mindhola rivers. So, Reliance isn't the only suspected pollutant.' However, Desai, who has studied the Surat-Hazira belt closely, does not give a clean chit to Reliance on environmental impact. "Companies like Reliance either convert their raw materials it is using into end products or releases them in vapour or liquid form into the atmosphere.' Reliance's baby steps towards becoming responsible over the last 3-4 years are certainly yielding results. It escaped public outcries in the heated national SEZ debate over land acquisitions last year, as it is paying handsomely for them. And if it applies itself to CSR with the same zeal with which it implements its hydrocarbon projects, the results would definitely be more than satisfactory. rajesh.gajra@abp.inThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it (Businessworld issue 20-26 May 2008)