Which is the area you are focusing on vis-à-vis development?

Since ours is a bio-technology company, we thought we could extend our core competence and reach out to people through health projects. Also, it is important to focus on a particular area of development, rather than diluting one's efforts by working on all possible fields. So in 2005, Biocon Foundation launched the Arogya Raksha Yojana(ARY) micro-health insurance program for underserved communities in rural and urban areas, in partnership with Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital and ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company. Members who enroll with the ARY programme pay an annual premium of as little as Rs 120 per person. For this, they are covered for tertiary and secondary care at any of our network of 34 hospitals in Karnataka. In three years we have done almost 800 surgeries, 60 of which have been open-heart surgeries, which our members would not have been able to afford otherwise. Today, in its fourth year of operation, we have a membership of 70,000 people in Karnataka.

We also provide mobile medical services and health camps in remote areas, from where connectivity is poor.

The mobile medical services are run by the ARY clinic staff, who periodically go to distant villages and provide consultation and medicines to the communities.

If health care is your focus area, then you must be working in the area of preventive healthcare too.

Yes, we discovered that most of our health problems are due to lack of awareness and poor hygiene. There are many people who manage without toilets. The government had announced they would be giving Rs 1,000 by way of their "One toilet per household" project to the house owner.

Imagine building a toilet in Rs 1,000. It would never get done and the money would just get eaten up. In 2007, the Biocon Foundation and the Embassy of Ireland decided to tackle this human crisis together. As a first step, we are building 800 toilets in Huskur Gram Panchayat, in Anekal, Karnataka. Of the total cost of Rs 7,300 per toilet, each family is paying Rs 1000 and members of the family are helping with the labour. The rest of the money is being paid by the Embassy of Ireland and Biocon Foundation. Local contractors are building the toilets under the supervision of the foundation staff. 220 toilets have already been built, and we hope to complete this project by August 2008.

What are your views on public private partnerships in CSR?

I think that is the way to go. But unfortunately, the government is not very forthcoming when it comes to these projects. There have been times when I have offered to help out, but government officials are just not interested. So somewhere I also feel it is better to do things on one's own rather than run after them. However, Biocon Foundation and Karuna Trust (an independent non-profit organisation) are working together with the Government of Arunachal Pradesh to run Primary Healthcare Clinics (PHCs) across the state. The 12 PHCs offer primary healthcare services and generic medicines to several remote tribal communities there.