When I never had any conscious idea of what the corporate world was or any awareness of any big corporates, TATA and Birla were the two most reckoning words that I could still remember. They gave me the impression that they were something larger than life individuals until I happened to realize what those names mean. Especially the journey of Aditya Birla Group which was conceived by Seth Shiv Narayan Birla in the year of 1857 has established itself as one of the prestigious Indian Multinational Conglomerates that our country has ever produced.
The Aditya Birla Group has played an important part in the lives of Indians as it deals with multi sectors ranging from viscose staple fibre, metals, cement (largest in India), viscose filament yarn, branded apparel, carbon black, chemicals, fertilizers, insulators, financial services, telecom, BPO and IT services. Coming from an agricultural background I could relate myself with Birla Balwan fertilizers. In those days Balwan fertilizer helped not our family but our entire village during low rainfall and drought as well. As they say, early minds are like a mud if imprinted it stays for a long time, and that’s how the relation with ABG started and I have been growing stronger and impacting my life in a productive and positive way.
Growing up in a thatched house has its cons and pros. After a particular point of time when my family decided to make a concrete home for us then I came across with ABG again. At this junction, it moved from fertilizer to cement, as we choose Ultratech over other available options because of our trust with the name Birla and it being Engineer’s Choice.
Then came an Idea which changed not only my life but all those who were growing up in the early 2010s. It has influenced more than any of ABG group products that I have come across. Idea’s initial Ads like using e-reader in place of the newspaper had always encouraged the youth to use the internet and get in with the new wave of data and digitization before it became a cliché.
Aditya Birla Fashion and retail is currently heading the pack of companies which has witnessed the aspiration of the Indian youth who want to look good and dress fashionably with trendy apparels. With its brands and retail outlets, it’s creating employment and at the same time fulfilling the aspirations of the customers.
I haven’t been a part of everything that ABG is contributing towards the development of the nation but it has been impacting the lives of our fellow Indians for more than 150 years. And as their business strategy says “If you offer fish to a hungry person he will eat the fish today but he will be hungry tomorrow. But if you will teach him how to fish neither he nor his family will be hungry tomorrow”, it would be a pleasure to be a part of the group to make a difference to people like me and passively to the nation as well.
-Rasmi Ranjan Samal.
The Dirty IGITANs
It was an early morning nothing special as such. I was up for a jog on my college campus as a daily routine. Smoke filled my nostrils when I searched for fresh air. I inquired what was happening and I found the drains were jammed as there was not a single dust-bin in our campus. The workers were collecting the waste to dry and burn it openly. It was not only making the locality polluted but also the campus looked awfully nasty with plastics and all the garbage been scattered here and there all over the place. I wish one of my friends took the thought and started an initiative which was partially influenced by the Dirty Indian project and named it The Dirty IGITAN. That followed with multiple meetings with warden and dean of student’s welfare but ultimately let us do what we had in our mind. We took the charge and created weekend cleaning initiatives where we requested students of different hostels to clean their hostel locality first, after that we moved on the campus level and then local villages. We repetitively requested college authorities to provide dust-bins so that students won’t through garbage where they would like to. We didn’t find that happening right then. However, when I went to my institute last year I could see oceans of dust-bins and coloured walls all over the campus making it such a beautiful place to be around. This experience gave me an earlier insight which was converted into Corporate Social Responsibility. After joining TATA Consultancy Services I became a part of its CSR arm TCS-MAITREE and I have worked for different cleaning campaign, I have worked for destitute home kids and orphanages. The journey so far has been insightful which I believe must have impacted a handful of people as well.