Gearing up for the masses

Food, fuel at real costs

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) may have become the latest and most organised process to channelise welfare-oriented activities of corporates. The government has recently mandated that two per cent of the average annual net profit of companies with Rs 1000 crore turnover /or Rs five crore profit or Rs 500 crore net worth should be ploughed back for the uplift of society. However, the jury is still out whether it actually serves the purpose it sets out to accomplish or acts as a soft spot of publicity and feel good for the profit-oriented organisations.

In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, more specifically in the industrial city of Coimbatore, a company, Shanthi Gears Limited seems to have aligned itself to the noble cause, albeit in a low-profile manner with some path-breaking steps to serve the needy. Much before it became a law, through their Shanthi Social Services, a registered public charitable trust established in 1996, which explicitly declares ‘the trust does not solicit, request or accept any donation’, it has kept the good show going for over two decades.

Splitting its social work into 11 areas- as diverse as providing support to government schools to running a 24-hour service-oriented petrol bunk, the good Samaritan trust has recently caught the attention of its serving masses for two reasons: the canteen food they serve for anyone who enters their premises and secondly, the petrol bunk which has notched up quite a peak in its popularity for the quality and service orientation.

In a state where ‘Amma canteens’ have revolutionised the low-cost yet quality-driven quest for food , Shanthi Social Service canteens have over the past six years served lakhs of visitors at its medical centre since its inception in April 2010. At an amazingly low rate of Rs 20, a minimum seven-course meal including a sweet dish apart from rice and roti is served for an approximate 20000 hungry crowd on a daily basis from August 2010, which regular patrons estimate is one-sixth of what it would actually cost in a normal vegetarian hotel.

Of the clientele, the patients comprise a measly five per cent at 1000 per day, which vouches for the popularity of the centre’s catering service. If this is the fuel for the body, the fuel for the city automobiles is provided by its Indian Oil-owned petrol bunk, which has a practice unheard of elsewhere. Here, petrol and diesel are sold at the old prices till the stock exhausts whenever there is an upward price revision. Prices are reduced instantly whenever there is price reduction. No wonder, it serves over 8500 customers a day.