IT major Wipro’s Azim Premji donated ₹22 crore a day or ₹7,904 crore in a year to emerge as the most generous Indian in FY20 and top a list of philanthropy.
Mr Premji pipped HCL Technologies’ Shiv Nadar, who had earlier topped the list collated by Hurun Report India and Edelgive Foundation, by a wide margin. Mr Nadar’s donations stood at ₹795 crore for FY20 as against ₹826 crore in the year-ago period. Mr Premji had donated ₹426 crore in the previous fiscal.
Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries retained the third spot among the list of givers by donating ₹458 crore as against ₹402 crore a year ago, it said.
The raging pandemic had the corporate honchos repurposing their donations to fight the COVID infections, and the top giver on this turned out to be Tata Sons with a ₹1,500- crore commitment, followed by Premji at ₹1,125 crore and Ambani’s ₹510 crore.
A bulk of the corporate commitments seemed to be given to the PM-CARES Fund, with Reliance Industries committing ₹500 crore, and Aditya Birla Group donating ₹400 crore, the report said. It can be noted that Tatas’ commitment also includes a ₹500 crore donation to the newly created fund.
Mr Premji’s generosity pulled the total donations up by 175% to ₹12,050 crore in FY20, the list said.
Azim Premji Endowment Fund owns 13.6 per cent of the promoter’s shareholding in Wipro and has the right to receive all money earned from promoter shares, the report said.
The number of individuals who have donated more than ₹10 crore increased marginally to 78 from the year-ago period’s 72, the report said.
With a donation of ₹27 crore, Amit Chandra and Archana Chandra of ATE Chandra foundation are the first and only professional managers to ever enter the list.
The list has three of Infosys’ co-founders with Nandan Nilekani (₹159 crore), S Gopalkrishnan (₹50 crore) and SD Shibulal (₹ 32 crore).
The list of 109 individuals who have donated over ₹5 crore has seven women, led by Rohini Nilekani’s ₹47 crore.
Education is the highest beneficiary sector with 90 philanthropists, led by Premji and Nadar, donating ₹9,324 crore, the report said, adding healthcare came second with 84 donors and was followed by disaster relief and rehabilitation with 41 donors.
The financial capital led by donor count at 36, followed by New Delhi at 20 and Bengaluru at 10.
E-commerce firm Flipkart’s co-founder Binny Bansal was the youngest donor at 37 with a commitment of ₹5.3 crore and the average age of the donors on the list was 66 years, it said.