Giving the Tata way

Giving the Tata way..

As they say, wealth Is measured in money. Greatness is measured in humility!

A recent story from West Bengal caught my attention. Sixteen year old Iqbal from Murshidabad suffers from a rare skin disorder that forces him to spend much of his time in water. His family could not afford the treatment he needed, so Anant Ambani arranged for him to be airlifted to Mumbai, where he is now receiving treatment free of cost at Sir H. N. Reliance Foundation Hospital. Helping a child in such circumstances is unquestionably a humane gesture.

But the story also made me think about the difference between helping one person in an exceptional situation and building institutions through which thousands of people can receive affordable healthcare year after year. Both are meaningful, but they leave very different kinds of legacies.

Sir H. N. Reliance Foundation Hospital is a premium private hospital, not a free hospital. Its charitable obligations provide free treatment for indigent patients and concessional treatment for economically weaker patients. Under Maharashtra’s charitable hospital framework, 10 percent of beds are reserved for indigent patients and another 10 percent for economically weaker sections, with financial eligibility assessed through documents such as income certificates, ration cards and other records. The assistance arranged for Iqbal was an individual intervention outside this routine framework, which is also why it became such a prominent story.

The Tata story has been unfolding for decades. Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai was established in 1941 with the support of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, and the Tata Trusts have continued to support healthcare and cancer research ever since. Tata Medical Center in Kolkata and cancer care institutions in Varanasi, Tirupati, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Chandrapur and Assam are part of a much wider effort to take cancer treatment beyond the country’s largest cities. The Tata Trusts’ Cancer Care Programme is now working towards a network of 20 cancer hospitals across seven states.

The Trusts also help patients directly. Their Individual Medical Grants Programme provides financial assistance to people who cannot afford treatment. In 2024 to 25, more than 2,700 individuals received assistance through a programme associated with 35 hospitals, with over ₹108 crore distributed in medical grants.

There is a subtle difference in the way this system works. At a charitable private hospital, free or concessional treatment is available to patients who fall within defined eligibility categories. At Tata Memorial, a patient does not have to prove that he is poor merely to seek treatment. General patients can receive treatment at subsidised rates, and if even that cost is beyond their means, the medical social work system can assess their circumstances and help arrange further assistance. The emphasis is on making treatment affordable rather than making poverty a precondition for entering the system.

There is another interesting contrast in the way the two families have approached something as simple as animal welfare. Anant Ambani founded Vantara in Jamnagar, a vast wildlife rescue, treatment, rehabilitation and conservation centre spread across thousands of acres. It has specialised hospitals, veterinary facilities and a huge network dedicated to animals rescued from distress. It is an extraordinary undertaking in scale, and Anant Ambani deserves credit for putting his passion for animals behind such a formidable institution.

The Tata approach can be seen in a very different setting. Walk into Bombay House, the Tata Group’s headquarters in the heart of Mumbai, and you may find something rather unusual for a corporate office. Stray dogs have been allowed to enter the building for years. When Bombay House was renovated in 2018, the Tatas actually created a dedicated kennel for them, complete with beds and facilities for their care. The dogs can come and go through their own entrance without needing an access card. There is something revealing about these two approaches. Vantara is a spectacular institution built specifically for animal welfare. Bombay House is a corporate headquarters where someone decided that even the stray dogs outside deserved a place inside. One represents philanthropy on a grand scale. The other represents compassion becoming part of everyday culture.

That is what makes the comparison between Tata and Ambani more interesting. The question is not who cares more. Both have demonstrated that they do. The question is what their philanthropy says about them. Anant Ambani’s response to animals has been to build Vantara. The Tata response, among many other things, was to make sure a stray dog would not be thrown out of Bombay House. Both are acts of compassion. One is monumental. The other is almost disarmingly simple. And sometimes, it is the simple things that tell you the most about a person’s character.

A billionaire arranging an airlift for a seriously ill child is an extraordinary event and naturally attracts attention. A trust that built a hospital decades ago, continues to fund healthcare, supports research, establishes new cancer centres and quietly helps patients with their treatment bills does not produce a headline every morning. Yet that work can touch thousands of lives over several generations.

This is what has always struck me about the Tata tradition. The institution remains bigger than the individual donor. The hospital carries the Tata name, but when a patient is on the operating table, what matters is the doctor, the treatment and the patient. The money has already done its job.

The Ambani family’s philanthropic work is also extensive through Reliance Foundation’s programmes in healthcare, education, disaster relief and other areas. There is nothing wrong with an individual act of generosity receiving publicity. But when an extraordinary act becomes a public story while decades of institutional philanthropy remain largely invisible, the contrast in styles becomes difficult to miss.

The difference between Tata and Ambani is not about who has more money. Both have immense wealth and both have used it to build institutions and support social causes. The difference is more about the manner in which that wealth is deployed and how prominently the benefactor remains in the picture.

The Tata model is remarkably simple. Build something useful, fund it, strengthen it and let it keep serving people. A hospital built decades ago can continue treating patients long after the people who financed its construction are gone. A medical grant can change one family’s life while the institution behind it keeps helping another family tomorrow.

India has many wealthy people. But wealth is not only about what one owns. There is another kind of wealth in being able to create something that benefits people one may never meet and then allowing the work to speak for itself.

That is the part of the Tata legacy I find most admirable.

Their greatest wealth is not merely what they possess. It is what they have quietly built for generations of people they may never know.

And perhaps that is the finest form of prosperity. When the work remains visible in people’s lives even when the person who made it possible does not. © Mandar Jog

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