HAVE A HEART TO GIVE - CHARITY - VIEWS AND INITIATIVES OF SHIV NADAR, FOUNDER HCL

“I was more impacted by what you can do, if you do well in education.” Shiv Nadar, Founder and Chairman of HCL and head of Shiv Nadar Foundation explains why he had set up SSN College of Engineering near Chennai in 1996. He has supported 6000 students with over Rs. 65 Crores in scholarships. The doors of the institution are open to deserving school students from rural areas. Janu, who graduated from SSN last year and now working with a multinational company, said she passed out of a government school 150 km from Chennai, a school that did not have teachers for half a dozen subjects.

“I needed a push, I needed some miracle.” recalls Prashant Kumar Dixit, then a school student in rural Uttar Pradesh, who was waiting for a break. Now a second year Engineering student in SSN College, Dikshit’s miracle came in the form of a seven year stint in Vidya Gyan that mentors rural school students with potential to excel through two leadership academies. Vidya Gyan is one of the numerous philanthropic initiatives of Shiv Nadar. Last year alone he has given away Rs.650 Crores to various charitable efforts.

Shiv Nadar does not believe in setting targets for charity, but gets done what needs to be done. He has no annual targets either. According to him charity is not about earning but the heart to give. He asserts, “There are no targets for charity, one only needs a heart to give.”

After taking a step away from running HCL, Shiv Nadar spends most of his time on his philanthropic activities. HCL Samuday, is a five year project where he is focusing on building two model clusters of villages “that are close to perfection” in Hardoi District, Uttar Pradesh, India. A similar effort is also on in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India with the support of the government.

(Based on an article in ‘BusinessLine’ from Thiruvananthapuram on 02082017)