The Hindu Business Line : Mining goodwill

Back in the 1960s, Narendrakumar Baldota’s father, Abheraj H. Baldota, was known as India’s ‘Metal King’. With a degree in commerce from Mumbai’s Podar College and a diploma in industrial management from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Baldota Jr joined his father’s company to learn the ropes of the business. However, the Baldota enterprises ran into financial trouble and 1967 found the 26-year-old son in Hospet, nort hern Karnataka, hoping to rebuild fortunes through the iron ore mines his family owned in the region.

The move had the residents of Hospet, then a small village, wondering what a Mumbai businessman was doing in their midst. But the Baldotas’ socially responsible behaviour saw them being accepted by the locals. Recounts Baldota, “Every Saturday we had to pay the labourers for the week. We used to borrow money at a high rate of interest for this. Fortunately, we always made the payments on time. We understand that if a labourer does not get money on Saturday, he will not be able to buy rations for the week.” Despite his own straitened circumstances, Baldota also set about providing decent accommodation and regular water supply for his workers. Today, the workers have good working conditions and access to schools, medical facilities and parks constructed by the company.

“We are not the owners of wealth, but its privileged trustees, and should serve the community with it,” Baldota recalls his father saying, and the Chairman of the Rs 3,000-crore Baldota group has strived to stand by this philosophy all his life.

Turning exporter

Over four decades now, from the time the Baldotas first stepped into Hospet, the group has gone from being a rookie mining company to a mature corporation with interests in steel, gases, gold mining, finance and wind power, besides iron ore. The Federation of Indian Export Organisations recently awarded Baldota its ‘Life Time Achievement Award’. It was the Baldotas who prevailed upon MMTC to give up its monopoly on iron ore export. In 1996, with the first-ever private licence in the country for iron ore export, the group delivered its first Chinese order — a step which changed the face of the country’s iron ore mining forever.

Green investment

MSPL, the group’s flagship company, was also awarded the Indira Priyadarshini Vriksha Mitra Award in 2004 by the Government of India. Back in the 1970s, when Green was not really in, Baldota was one of the first industrialists to recognise the importance of conservation and, to date, the Baldota group has planted over 1.7 million trees in its mining areas. MSPL’s investment in wind power, a renewable energy source, has also been officially acknowledged by the State and central governments. On a suggestion by Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the then President of India, that every industrialist in the country adopt five villages, Baldota adopted villages in the region around Hospet. On visiting these villages, he found that the women there lacked sanitation facilities and had 150 toilets constructed. Five hundred more will be built this year. A blood bank set up in the region in 2002 provides 20 bottles of blood a day, and the main beneficiaries are pregnant women. There are six tailoring schools for women and many have been given free sewing machines to help them earn from home.

A junior woman employee at the company’s Hospet office similarly recalls how she and her female colleagues had been inconvenienced because there was no separate restroom for them. She was just two months into the firm, but when she drew the Chairman’s attention to this need he had taken steps to resolve it immediately. Baldota is known to drop by at his offices and strike up conservations with his staff at random, enquiring about their job satisfaction and comfort.

Besides his father, Baldota says he draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, which he had read as a child. Stating that his group has always believed in transparent and ethical business practices, he cites an example: In 1983, the group had found it difficult to sell the 7 cubic metre cylinders produced from a newly installed oxygen plant. Customers reported that a similar product was available elsewhere at a much lower price. The Baldotas investigated and discovered that the competitors were not filling the cylinders to capacity. Buyers were made aware of this and they have, since then, willingly paid more for an honest product, he says.

Today, the Baldotas can afford to live well in any big Indian city, but continue to make Hospet their home, with four generations living under one roof. “Hospet has given me everything,” says Baldota, who has over the last few years handed over the group’s day-to-day running to his two sons, and now spends most of his time in community development. His hobbies include gardening and reading, and he enjoys spending time with his children and their families.

“In a small place, you have time for family. We have a one-hour lunch break here, during which our employees go home, have lunch with their family and take rest,” he says. His counsel to those in the rat race — “Remember to look after your health and take care of your family and personal growth. Running after money should not be the only priority.”

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