If only money could solve all problems !!!
We would be breathing clean air.
ITC is showing the way, not the govt.
A company gets raided by the pollution control board for contaminating ground water and damaging the health of a million people. The first response in India is,”Manage the officer”. To increase sales of vehicles a biased but convincing report is to be given to the govt to enable a ban on old vehicles. The immediate response is, “Manage the report”.
“Kharid lo” is the core philosophy of our industry.
Cheaper to buy than to be right. The British left this country over 75 years ago. They left their inheritance in the form of poverty, corruption and Bakshish.
With the exception of ITC Ltd and Sanjiv Puri there is not one company which passes the test of being a environmentally conscious, innovating, fast growing, board run business among all the old guard companies.
Way back in 1987, ITC was raided and supposedly caught red handed evading excise. I was part of the audit firm which audited ITC. Their foreign collaborator BAT abandoned them. We were given the mandate to sell the company. There were no buyers. 90% of their revenue came from tobacco.
The company management were left to fend for themselves. The IITian group effectively took over. Yogi Deveshwar decided to mend fences with the govt. He allocated 80% of his time to govt work and accepted honorary full time jobs in the govt. The others including a young Sanjiv Puri got to work behind the scenes. Rapid diversification strategies were put in place. ITC Infotech, hotels, food … were fired on all cylinders. Rome was not built in a day. Almost 40 years later the results are for all to see.
Cigarettes are no longer bulk of revenue, valuation or profits. Out of 10 Leeds platinum certified hotels in the world, 9 are in India – all with ITC, none with Tata or Oberoi. They learned to walk the talk. Three years ago on an introduction by Sanjiv Puri I visited their sustainability group in Gurgaon. Three hundred outstanding professional were working like a IIT Boot camp.
Last year the G20 leaders summit was at the ITC Bharat Hotel and Golf Course in Manesar. Delhi Golf Club consumes 4 million litres of water a day. DLF consumes 5 million litres. ITC Golf course is double the size yet consumes less than a million litres. The complex imports sewage from nearby villages which is used along with kitchen waste to produce organic fertiliser, biogas for cooking and grey water for the golf course. I visited every hotel of theirs. The ITC Maurya has probably India’s only solar thermal plant with parabolic reflectors. Instead of hiding it, they offer guests a sustainability tour. The U.S. President and other heads of states only stay here.
We need to get companies like ITC and Infosys along with non profits like IIT Alumni Council to solve air pollution. It is a 10 year, Rs 25,000 cr challenge. It can be done.
The govt cannot solve it.
Money is necessary.
But rarely sufficient.
