The pace of government reforms and work done by NGOs is still very slow (today India has 1.7 million NGOs)  –  and the slow growth is evident when one considers the last 50-60 years. When one talk about public access to healthcare, education, food and water, power and energy and even infrastructure,  what we have missed out on is getting people involved and bringing the power of markets to the grassroots. The solution, in my view, lies in getting the private sector involved, and ensuring that its participation goes much beyond that of the traditional approach of CSR.

SMEs, for example (the largest employment generators in the country), face various challenges: firstly, they face a severe problem in accessing financial resources (either debt or equity) and secondly, they also lack access  to knowledge networks and to good managerial talent.

Also, let us consider urbanization: clearly the world is getting urbanized. In 1800 – 3% of the world’s population were in cities; in 1900 it went up to 10% and in 2000 it has gone to over 50%. And a bi-directional linkage between urbanization and growth has been clearly proven without doubt. People in cities are more than 20 times productive than their rural counterparts. China has 138 cities with a million plus population, while  India today has only 35 cities, and that is where I think lies both, India’s challenge in urbanization, as well as its greatest opportunity – we can today build for a population of 600 million an entire infrastructure from scratch and that is not something available to the US cities. And cities in the developed countries are notoriously inefficient in terms of sustainability or resource use.

If we really talk about new business models, there are several organizations that are doing fantastic pioneering work in achieving large scale social change. The Bill and Mellinda Gates Foundation spent about USD 260 million on only their HIV intervention program in India and they used standard business principles in achieving this change. They formalized data capturing and made the process so simple that even their frontliners could use. They also had a very strong focus on measuring the social impact that they were attempting to achieve, as evidenced by the 10% spending (amounting to about USD 25-26 million) on just measuring the impact.

Another example: Pratham is another organization with what someone would call an audacious target of reaching out to 200 million children and the good news is that last year they have been able to reach out to 20 million /children across 300,000 villages. And they have done this in just 14 years.

Yet another example: IFMR Trust is a strongly mission driven organization whose rates of lending are much lower than others. They have a CCD or franchisee approach that keeps the costs of operations much lower than others operating full-fledged branches. They also remove the physical paper aspect from the entire process and drive down costs of serving a customer as much as possible.

Thus, there is a potential for big ideas to work, if one has courage and conviction and a firm belief in oneself, and that is India needs more of today.

There is this quote by Confucius that comes to my mind often: “a superior man knows what is right, an inferior man knows what will sell”. Today I think most of what management teaches us or what politicians try do is how to sell. What we need is to first do what is right and then know how to sell it.

For our readers from abroad, a comprehensive coverage of the calamity can be found by referring this link.

This was the time to stand up, do something and be counted. Gone were the times of making patronizing statements, say the obligatory words of solace and then go on with your usual life. This was the time to walk the talk.

Some of us had stayed back in campus during the term break and they actually set the ball rolling. We brainstormed, we networked and by the time the batch had come back & Term 4 had started a concrete plan was ready. We wanted immediate action. That sort of ruled out making contributions to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund or any such other fund. While noble, these funds did not let us see any tangible benefits. It was like a case of fill it & forget it. We wanted more than that.

Some of us got in touch with a NGO working in the field in Bihar. Accredited by UNICEF & CARE, this was a reputed NGO & we could be sure that stuff we direct to them would reach the intended population. The next thing was to decide on what to send. Money, probably was the easiest thing. But these people on the brink of life & death don’t need money now. They need food, they need safe drinking water, they need clothes and medicines. So what we decided was to raise the money in the campus and then buy the essential stuff. Already orders have been placed for an initial batch of medicines and we are also doing a cloth collection drive at the campus. We have also contacted the Indian Railways to book space for all the stuff we are going to ship out. This should reach the NGO in Patna who will in turn direct it to the forward areas.

We had our first collection drive yesterday. It was really really heartening to see the spontaneous response from the batch. We have not yet lost touch with reality. Even more heartening is the response people have shown to volunteer for other small activities all of which are essential to making this entire thing a success.

This is but a small start, a small drop in the ocean. This cannot be solved by 450 students sitting in a B-school. This requires monetary contribution and physical efforts which is beyond the current batch. This requires huge amounts of money & relief material. This also requires massive work on the ground to ensure that all that is collected & donated reach the needy & do not get “lost in transit”.

Though we may be in a top B-school & running after that elusive dream job we are not really insulated. Things like these, the plight of our fellow men, drills the fact down that we do not really exist in isolation. End of the day, we are all human beings and will do all possible things to make the lives of people happy.