Wipro’s Azim Premji emerges as most generous Indian in FY20

Premji pipped HCL Technologies' Shiv Nadar, who had earlier topped the list collated by Hurun Report India and Edelgive Foundation, by a wide margin

Mumbai: IT major Wipro’s Azim Premji donated Rs 22 crore a day or Rs 7,904 crore in a year to emerge as the most generous Indian in FY20 and top a list of philanthropy.

Premji pipped HCL Technologies’ Shiv Nadar, who had earlier topped the list collated by Hurun Report India and Edelgive Foundation, by a wide margin. Nadar’s donations stood at Rs 795 crore for FY20 as against Rs 826 crore in the year-ago period. Premji had donated Rs 426 crore in the previous fiscal.

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Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries retained the third spot among the list of givers by donating Rs 458 crore as against Rs 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 Rs 1,500- crore commitment, followed by Premji at Rs 1,125 crore and Ambani’s Rs 510 crore.

A bulk of the corporate commitments seemed to be given to the PM-CARES Fund, with Reliance Industries committing Rs 500 crore, and Aditya Birla Group donating Rs 400 crore, the report said. It can be noted that Tatas’ commitment also includes a Rs 500 crore donation to the newly created fund.

Premji’s generosity pulled the total donations up by 175 per cent to Rs 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 Rs 10 crore increased marginally to 78 from the year-ago period’s 72, the report said.

With a donation of Rs 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 (Rs 159 crore), S Gopalkrishnan (Rs 50 crore) and S D Shibulal (Rs 32 crore). The list of 109 individuals who have donated over Rs 5 crore has seven women, led by Rohini Nilekani’s Rs 47 crore.