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Over the last decade, Rohini Nilekani, philanthropist and writer has invested across various causes spanning education, environment and sanitation. Last week, wife of Infosys Ltd co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who is currently the chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, sold around 5.7 lakh shares of Infosys for over Rs 163 crore to further her philanthropic activities.
In a interview with Business Standard’s Surabhi Agarwal, Rohini says that she has been working for the last one and a half years towards devising a clear strategy for her philanthropic initiatives which will now focus towards addressing governance issues in the country at the various levels. Edited Excerpts:
How do you plan to deploy the proceeds of the recent sale?
I plan to continue and amplify my philanthropy work. I have decided not to set up another foundation like Arghyam right now, but I will use that money to support various people in the country who are doing a lot of good work, especially in the areas of governance, transparency, data etc. These are some of the emerging areas where lots of innovative ideas are coming up which need early support. I am also interested in enhancement of our natural resource base, issues related to justice etc. We have identified a few organisations, there are some think tanks along with some good research that needs to be encouraged.
What kind of organizations would you like to invest in? Have you identified any?
For example, recently I have supported an institution called Parliamentary Research Service (PRS), some money has gone to ATree (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment), Dakshin Foundation, IndiaSpends, the Association for Democratic Reforms etc. So, I have done some exploratory grants so far but now I will have to do more homework.
So far how much money have you invested in your philanthropic work?
I have given Rs 210 crore till date from my own personal money, which doesn't include Nandan's. Out of this, Arghyam has Rs 150 crore in it and the remaining Rs 60 crore has gone to multiple organizations over the last 10-12 years. In the early years, I didn't have that much money and I was just dribbling it out, in the last few years, it has gone up more rapidly.
Do you have a timeline for spending the Rs 160 crore?
Since the money is not going into a Foundation, it will stay with me but I am deliberately keeping it in a separate account. I am ring-fencing it and I am accountable morally to myself for giving it away. This way, I will have the freedom to give either large or small amounts. But, I haven't set a timeline. I hope I won't take more than five years to exhaust the funds. There is also a question of absorptive capacity. The kind of areas I am looking at may only need little amounts of money which could be critical for them.
If you were not going to sign a big cheque immediately then why sell so many shares at one go?
You don't go about selling one share every day. I want to do it transparently and correctly. Suppose I want to make a very large donation to an institution in the next year or so, I don’t want to keep going back to Sebi and saying I am selling 10 more shares or 15 more shares since I am classified as a promoter by them. And I haven't sold a single share of Infosys in the last 6-7 years because I didn't need to. Now that I have spent a year devising my philanthropy strategy, I hired an advisor, we did hundreds of interviews etc. So, I thought through this for one and a half years about the strategy that I want to follow and deploy over the next few years.
You set up Arghyam, so that you could you have more control over your investments. Then why the change in strategy?
I don’t have a desire to have control as it will operate on trust. Ofcourse, I will want that money to make a difference, but I will not be in those institutions. Personally, I don't have all the answers to the issues. I also value diversity of thought and approaches very much. You have to try a bunch of things and see what works in a country like India. One size doesn't fit all and I don't have a monopoly over good ideas. There are lots of passionate and committed people in the country who are working very hard on the ground and they need support.
How do you operate, do you have a team in place to identify projects etc?
I have a philanthropy advisor called Hari Menon who used to be at the Gates Foundation and before that he was with the corporate sector. He and I have been working for almost one and half years trying to identify the areas in which I would do my philanthropy. Addressing governance issues are important because whichever silo you work in be it education, micro-finance, sanitation, food or health, eventually you hit the governance deficit. The reason why we don't have equity and sustainability is because somewhere our governance failures catch up with us. For example, there is so much burden on Panchayats, we need to figure out how to help them to function better.
