Social responsibility
By giving something back to the society, I don’t feel I am doing a favour. I am not doing any charity. It is my responsibility. You are part of a society where 400 million people are extremely poor. When you create wealth, a portion of that wealth has to necessarily go to these people who are right at the bottom.
I have been doing this for the last 25 years in my village in Palghat. The size of my wealth was nothing compared to what it is today, yet I was doing that. I have been feeding the poor and the elderly two times a day for the last 25 years, but I don’t like to talk about it.
Recently I decided that my geography of work will be the place where I was born, the Kizhakkancherry Panchayat in Palghat district. We did a study in the two panchayats to find out how many people there were really poor: we found that there were 3,000 families living below the poverty line.
So, my focus is on these 3,000 families -- the education of their children, their health conditions, their housing, water, sanitation, and, finally, their employment.
I have put a time target of 8-10 years for the socio-economic empowerment of these 3,000 families. About 12,000 people will benefit from this. I am like a father to these 3,000 families. They are like my extended family.
Image: A community dining hall, one of Sobha Developers' initiatives in rural Kerala.
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