Charity Begins at Home

Channel partners are quite active as far as philanthropic activities are concerned and they are giving back to soceity as much as possible

Right from their status messages in social networking site, till international issue, channel partners have never missed an opportunity for giving back to society.

The moment anyone thinks of CSR (Corporate social activity), they remember big corporate firms turning ‘social' just for a day and posing for media lens men. Even though a myth is believed that CSR activities are mere individual-marketing or image building, activities of channel partners across the country shows that the channel partners are always concerned about the society.

CSR in India

The evolution of corporate social responsibility in India refers to changes over time in India of the cultural norms of corporations' engagement of corporate social responsibility (CSR), with CSR referring to way that businesses are managed to bring about an overall positive impact on the communities, cultures, societies and environments in which they operate.

Among other countries India has one of the richest traditions of CSR. Much has been done in recent years to make Indian channel partners aware of social responsibility as an important segment of their business activity but CSR in India has yet to receive widespread recognition. If this goal has to be realized then the CSR approach of corporate has to be in line with their attitudes towards mainstream business- companies setting clear objectives, undertaking potential investments, measuring and reporting performance publicly.

Pradeep Jhawar, CEO, Bard Roy Infotech, Kolkata has made philanthropy as a part of his business model. "Through our organization, we regularly offer computers to the children in orphanages enabling to acquire computer knowledge. Beyond targets and other pressures doing such activities is a type of mental satisfaction." Jhawar also requests other channel partners to involve themselves in any form of philanthropy as it will give a mental satisfaction. "We should not feel after living 60 years and feeling that we have not done anything to the society. It is better to give away back what we have earned till now", he says. Jhawar also says that his company does IT-enabled services with deduction of his profit 30% for any projects done for social cause. Many channel partners, even though, do not give money straight away from the pocket, does lot of concession when it comes for an IT deployment of social cause.

"Currently our organization is concentrating on two things. Primarily we want to concentrate on the children who are not having proper education.

Second, we are trying to concentrate on orphanages, especially those which do not have any attention from mass public", he further added.

R.K.Malhotra, CEO, Velocis Systems, Delhi, feels has done many CSR activities at personal level and through his organization. "We focus primarily on the welfare of the handicapped people and we do a lot for orphanages", Malhotra says who further adds that recently they have signed with a forum to conduct regular medical camps and checkups for the people who are in poverty. Malhotra also advises the growing entrepreneurs to give back the society, what they earned. "The young channel partners should consider what they obtained from the society and should spend at least 5 to 10% of their profit back to the society", he concludes.

"CSR is a very important activity and today is being made mandatory by the Government and it expects each corporate to put aside upto 10 % of its profits for social activities. We at Tricom are working closely with another organization CASE who is working in the space of providing help to students upto 12th class to do to online learning and this is done through a online portal called www.extraminds.com and Tricom is supporting them by providing licensing of software for executing these projects. We have already been active in social events where we donate some softwares for winners so that they get the feeling of owning legal software and expect them to buy the same when they grow up.", says Harinder Salwan, MD, Tricom Multimedia ,Mumbai.

"In the indian business environment we find investments and CSR activities become done only if they find some tax benefits under Section 80 G and we find that quite a few corporates donate towards charity being done by others so that they get some tax benefits", he says. He also advises each channel partner to step forward and share his profits for the welfare of the community and that would be possible only if he makes healthy margins in business and puts aside a percent of that for charity and CSR. We have seen quite a few members who religiously every year go to temples and donate a share of their money as mode of thanksgiving and I would appreciate if they take the lead in spend the same on people who really need that.

Associations and CSR activities

Even though there are lot of channel partners do the CSR activities in the personal level, the various associations of the channel partners done various activities on different levels. There are lot of advantages by doing an activity through an association rather than doing it alone.

Chennai Electronics and Information Traders Association (CEITA), the forum in the IT hub of Chennai, through an NGO has organized a blood camp and had donated 314 units of blood. The event was inaugurated by Saidai S Duraisamy, Mayor, Corporation of Chennai.

H Chandalia, Secretary, CEITA, says "We actually planned for only 200 units of blood. However, the on-spot responses were overwhelming and we ended in collecting a massive 314 units." "Actually we planned to windup the camp by 3pm. However, with more donors coming forward we extended the camp till 7pm", Chandalia further added. Chandalia also said that the camp would have been extended however, due to the non-availability of doctors, they downed the camp.

We are introducing a ‘charity box' in the workplace of all the members. The customers, vendors and others who walk into the shop will be requested to donate for charity which, through the respective associations, will be utilized for charity purpose. This initiative will be a part of our social-welfare activities.", said James Joseph, state-president, AKITDA.

We have a good history of CSR activity. "Our members, earlier, had donated some rare blood groups and donated money for the poor. Recently also we had organized 102 units by the computer dealers. Talks were also there to donate clothes to the needy people", says Gurpreet Singh Jagdev, Joint Secretary, Association of Computers Entrepreneurs, Ludiana.

B swaminathan

(swaminathanb@cybermedia.co.in)