Wish you were here

Each city is an archetype rather

than a prototype, an exaggerated

example from which to derive

lessons for the typical,” said American

architect Robert Venturi. The cities and

towns that the Tatas have created

around some of their industrial facilities

reflect an originality in conception and

execution that bears out the truth of

Mr Venturi’s contention.

Jamshedpur, Mithapur, Babrala,

Mathigiri and Magadi are unique in

their own ways, different from one

another in tone, tenor and character,

but there is a similarity of principle

that underpins all five — mere

functionality has taken a backseat to a

blending of the practical and the

aesthetic with the environment in

which these centres are rooted.

There is more to the environment

than the ground beneath and beyond

where the cities sit; there is what can be

called the people factor. The Tata

townships are tangible manifestations of

a commitment to employees that

stretches much further than any formal

or mandated contract. They are symbols

of an all-encompassing relationship

between company and employee that

incorporates workplace, home and family.

Just as importantly, they are catalysts for

the development of the regions and the

people beyond their suburbs.

The Tata companies that sustain

these cities are cast in the mould of

caretakers rather than gatekeepers.

This attitude has allowed Jamshedpur

and its siblings to grow and prosper in a

manner that befits the particular

circumstances of their individual

evolution, without being encumbered

by any unilateral doctrine. The stories

that follow explain how.

JamshedpurThe origins of Jamshedpur, home

today to the majority of Tata Steel’s

operations and a significant part of

Tata Motors, is tied to an idea

espoused by Jamsetji Tata, the Tata

founder. Writing to his son, Dorab

29

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS � TOWNSHIPS

Tata, in 1902 about his concept of a

city for the workers of the proposed

Tata Steel plant, he stated: “Be sure to

lay wide streets planted with shady

trees, every other of a quick-growing

variety. Be sure that there is plenty of

space for lawns and gardens. Reserve

large areas for football, hockey and

parks. Earmark areas for Hindu

temples, Mohammedan mosques and

Christian churches.”

Jamsetji Tata had passed away by

the time Jamshedpur came into being,

but his spirit of caring and giving has

come to represent the nature of the

city. This was a cluster of tribal

settlements before it began the journey

of morphing into an industrial hub and

a model for modern India’s urban

landscape and lifestyle.

Thanks to this transformation, the

city holds the key to the inherent

competitive advantages that the

company enjoys. Tata Steel attracts the

best talent in the country because of

the lifestyle provided in this oasis in the

middle of nowhere.

Tata Steel maintains Jamshedpur’s

public utilities much like a

municipality, only better. It takes care

of road maintenance, water and

electricity supply, streetlights,

healthcare, sanitation and more. The

standard of these activities is so good

that Tata Steel floated Jusco as a

separate entity so as to share its

30

CODE OF HONOUR

Jamshedpur: This township with a heart provides its residents the best of facilities

knowledge and expertise, which is

unparalleled in the country.

The water here is of such high

quality that Jamshedpur is one of the

few Indian cities where one can drink

directly from the tap. Tata Steel

arranges for the cleaning up of over

95,000 tonnes of garbage a year,

keeping the city squeaky clean. It

provides electricity well enough for

residents to take the service for

granted. The company also spends

Rs25 crore a year on the Tata Main

Hospital, which takes care of the

health of employees as well as of the

general public.

Jamshedpur is among the greenest

of India’s cities, with a plethora of

parks, playgrounds and tree-lined

streets. It is also an exemplar in

education, having a literacy rate — 75

per cent — that is unparalleled in

eastern India. Tata Steel runs eight

primary schools, nine high schools and

a college, while supporting many more

schools indirectly. Community

initiatives are as high on the Tata

agenda as education and this has

spawned a wide variety of programmes,

most notably on Aids awareness and

drug abuse.

The Tatas spend about Rs50 crore

annually on keeping Jamshedpur in the

pink of health. That, evidently, is not

good enough, given that plans are

being prepared, with the help of

renowned architect Karan Grover, to

improve the city further. This is in the

Tata tradition of town planning,

pioneered in India almost a century

back, through the Jamshedpur model,

by architect FC Temple.

Complementing the contribution

that Tata Steel has made to

Jamshedpur is Tata Motors, which has

a 1,200-acre township of its own within

the precincts of the city. Tata Motors

provides accommodation to all its

employees and there are about 40,000

residents in the township. There are

facilities for water treatment and

sewage disposal, a well-equipped

hospital with 404 beds, dispensaries,

markets, a sports stadium,

playgrounds, parks and recreation

centres, academies for theatre, music

and dance, and a hobby hub that

fosters creativity in employees and

their families.

Tata Motors extends financial aid

to more than 30 local schools and also

runs Asha Kiran, a special school

where more than 130 disabled children

find succour.

Mithapur and Babrala Tata Chemicals has created two

centres around its operations in India:

Mithapur in coastal Gujarat and

Babrala in Uttar Pradesh. Distinct in

layout and geography, Mithapur and

Babrala serve the needs and

requirements of the company’s

chemicals and fertilisers plants

respectively.

The Mithapur story began in 1939,

when the Tatas took over the Okha Salt

Works. Okhamandal, the region where

31

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS � TOWNSHIPS

32

CODE OF HONOUR

Mithapur is situated, was an

undeveloped and desolate place where

many kingdoms and civilisations had

thrived in the past. Mithapur, privately

owned by Tata Chemicals, is part of

the 5,398-acres of freehold land

obtained in the 1930s from the

government of the erstwhile princely

state of Baroda.

The town square at Mithapur, from

where roads branch out in many

directions, is symbolic of the central

place the company enjoys in this

community comprising employees and

their families, teachers and merchants.

Spread across 663 acres of land,

Mithapur enjoys the advantages of

urban infrastructure along with the

beauty of its idyllic surroundings.

A department within Tata

Chemicals takes care of Mithapur’s

administration. This department is

responsible for developing and

maintaining residential houses,

schools, medical facilities, public

spaces and welfare and sports activities.

Mithapur has a high school, three

primary schools, and one pre-school;

together they provide education to

some 5,000 children and employment

to over 200 teachers.

A well-equipped hospital, a mobile

clinic, a family-planning unit and child-

immunisation centres look after the

healthcare needs of company employees

as well as the people living in the 42

villages of Okhamandal. Other facilities

include a marketplace, a hospital and a

cinema hall. The town has an

assortment of parks and gardens, and a

2-km-long beach. The two lakes at its

outskirts attract a variety of migratory

birds in the winter months.

Tata Chemicals operates all the

municipal services in the town, and

delivers an uninterrupted supply of

electricity from its captive co-

generation power plant. The company

provides for the cultural and

recreational needs of the community

Mithapur: The township for Tata Chemicals employees is designed to please

33

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS � TOWNSHIPS

through the libraries, clubs, cinemas,

playgrounds and public gardens it has

established. To cater to the diverse

needs of its staff and the local

community, Tata Chemicals supports,

through grants, a large number of

social and cultural institutions.

Water is a precious commodity in

Mithapur, which falls in the drought-

prone Jamnagar district. Water is

recycled back to a flush-pumping

station and used to nourish plants and

maintain gardens.

Fourteen hundred kilometres to the

north of Mithapur, in the midst of a

densely forested area, lies Babrala,

developed in 1991 when Tata Chemicals’

fertiliser plant was set up here.

This settlement is home to nearly

500 employees and their families. This,

too, is an urban dwelling in a rural

setting. Wide roads and a green

environment characterise the town

layout. Nearly 70 per cent of the land

was converted into a green cover with a

quarter million trees. The company has

planted 2,80,000 trees and 1,05,000

shrubs leading to almost 3.8 lakh

square metres of green cover. Tata

Chemicals has provided plenty of

amenities in Babrala: spacious houses,

a shopping centre, a clubhouse, a

library, and health and sports facilities.

The DAV Public School instructs

students in both English and Hindi.

Environment is a key issue in

Babrala and Mithapur, both of which

are ISO-14001 certified. The emphasis

is on waste reduction, proper garbage

Babrala: An urban oasis

disposal and conservation of natural

resources. Environmental awareness

drives are held regularly and both

towns have a ‘no plastics’ policy.

MagadiThe newest member of the Tata

Chemicals family is the Magadi Soda

Company (MSC) in Magadi, Kenya.

Magadi lies deep inside lands

reserved for the Maasai tribe, first

sealed through agreement by the

colonial British government in 1911.

The tribe has always had great

expectations of MSC and the company

strives to fulfil these.

MSC runs a robust corporate

sustainability programme that

spearheads development initiatives for

the community. The company focuses on

water, education, health, employment,

business, transport and infrastructural

issues. Towards this end, it has

introduced many initiatives for the

betterment of the community in Magadi.

MSC supplies clean drinking water

to the local community, schools and

health centres within its environs. It

has also made arrangements for a

potable-water pipeline from Magadi

township to the outlying Ilparakuo

village 7km away. Water is transported

by truck daily to community centres,

schools and dispensaries up to 30km

away. A train operated by the company

delivers water thrice a week to people

residing within a radius of 60km.

The company also supports the

community by maintaining the Sampu

pipeline and repairing the Elangata

Wuas community borehole. In addition,

it put in place a pipeline from Magadi

to Oldonyonyokie.

MSC has made many significant

efforts to offer good quality education

to the community. It set up four

34

CODE OF HONOUR

Magadi: The guesthouse of the Magadi Soda Company in Kenya

35

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS � TOWNSHIPS

schools in Magadi township. It

supports primary schools in the

construction of classes and the

provision of learning and teaching

facilities. It also provides scholarships

for tertiary/university education to

students from Kajiado district and

runs an adult education programme.

A 60-bed hospital in Magadi

serves the community well. The

company further subsidises

healthcare in the hospital by up to

70 per cent. It has undertaken health

awareness and vaccination campaigns

and has worked long and hard to

spread awareness on Aids.

MSC has reserved a percentage of

jobs in its operations for the local

community. The Magadi

Multipurpose Cooperative Society was

established in 2003 to create wealth

for the local community through

enterprise development. The

cooperative offers its members

income, employment and business

training. The cooperative also

provides savings and credit services to

the members as a way of promoting

investment.

The company runs a rail

passenger coach for local community

transport between Magadi and

Kajiado. It maintains both the 146-km

railway line from Magadi to Konza as

well as the 86-km Magadi-Kiserian

Road, besides helping maintain many

rural roads.

Through all these efforts and

more, MSC has proved its strong

commitment to the people of Magadi.

MathigiriIn the late 1980s, Titan zeroed in

on Hosur in Tamil Nadu’s

impoverished Dharmapuri district for

its manufacturing operation. Several

companies followed in its wake and the

influx of industrial workers put a

severe strain on the infrastructure in

the area.

While mapping the needs of its

burgeoning employee community,

Titan discovered that housing

resources were meagre and

substandard. Having provided its

large, young workforce with decent

disposable incomes, India’s top

watchmaker was now faced with the

task of meeting the requirement of

enjoyable living.

In 1991 Titan established a

township spread over 110 acres at

Mathigiri. Constructed with the help of

acclaimed architect Charles Correa, it

was designed in a manner that blended

urban landscapes with the semi-rural

milieu of the region, from where the

majority of the company’s employees

came. The company did not want to

unsettle its employees by providing a

totally urban environment.

Currently about 480 families live

at Mathigiri, which has rows of duplex

houses arranged in clusters around

landscaped courtyards. Every house

has an open space in the front and a

private garden in a common courtyard

at the back. There is a conveniently

located shopping centre, a medical

clinic, a sprawling recreation centre

and other facilities aimed at

encouraging a vibrant communal life.

Blacktopped roads and landscaped

common areas make this area pleasing

to the eye.

The company also addresses the

education needs of this community.

The Titan School, started in 2001, has

close to 700 children in classes ranging

from pre-primary to the tenth

standard. This school has an

alternative approach and

emphasises holistic rather

than merely academic

education. Children use the

unconventional sight and

phonetic reading method to

learn. The school has no

examinations till the fourth

standard; it believes in the

integrated curriculum

approach that does not burden

a child, but allows for total

personality development.

The company was also able

to employ its spirit for

innovation to circumvent some

of the problems it encountered.

Water shortage, the norm in

Hosur, is unheard of in

Mathigiri. This is because

Titan had invested in more

than 50 rainwater-harvesting

pits to raise the water table

level. Arbitrary digging for bore

wells is prohibited while

gardening and landscaping are

done with recycled water.

“The city is a fact in nature, like a

cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap,”

said the late American philosopher

Lewis Mumford. “But it is also a

conscious work of art…” Having

evolved from a deep consciousness of

how interdependent a company and its

stakeholders are, the cities and towns

that the Tatas have built reinforce

Mr Mumford’s hypothesis.

36

CODE OF HONOUR

Mathigiri: A complete planned town