Rajeev Juneja, Managing Director of Mankind Pharma, recently revealed that the company donated Rs 250 crore towards Covid-19 relief work for frontline workers after a miscalculation of a zero. He was talking to YouTuber Ranveer Allahabadia during the podcast 'The Ranveer Show'.
"We had a debate at home. We felt that we have a lot, and we should definitely give. We thought of donating Rs 21 crore. But my son said, you have such a big business, you should donate more. At the same, it was reported that Akshay Kumar donated Rs 50 crore. My son came to me and pressed upon the topic again. And we immediately went ahead with it," he said.
"There is a popular saying that when you are giving from one hand, the other should not know. I think the other hand should know, it inspires other people. However, at the same time, we thought that let's do something for doctors- first it was the PM's fund, then other funds and oxygen cylinders. We donated plenty of stuff. It was an emotional thought. As a family, when we think of a noble deed, we announce it to the family. We understood that doctors and nurses were dying and we started calculating estimates. However, due to miscalculation, the estimated donation amount had one less zero than the actual amount we donated."
Mr Juneja said that the company had announced that they would give a certain amount on the death of any chemists, police officers, nurses or doctors. "What we had pledged, we had to donate 10x more. So we ended up giving around Rs 250 crore at that time. We gave without any expectation. But we got so much love and appreciation for that. It was all unexpected. It happened just like that. Something big happened out of a mistake," he told the host.
Mr Juneja also cited the example of Bill Gates and his ex-wife's private foundation- the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "When you remember Bill Gates, you remember him as someone who created Windows or someone who created the foundation? What gives you a good feeling? What makes him so great? Just remove the second part, he is another business tycoon, but you add that and he becomes a superhuman being," he said, adding that "it is the rule of life where you have to give".
He highlighted that a successful businessman should be empathetic and compassionate. "We lost many of our people during Covid. We gave 13 years of salary to the families of employees we lost during the pandemic. If you call them your family members, if you love them, then you ought to do something. At Mankind, we believe that one should not express grief only through words, we should participate in it. This is our company's culture. If someone is in trouble, everyone will contribute," Mr Juneja added.
