Tata Motors: The makers of Nano do not consider Road Safety their Priority

Dear all,

I write after a long pause on this matter. After letting go off intial anger, I still wondered whether or not to blow the whistle (in a way) on Corporates that oft claim to be the Champions of people and society. Part of me perhaps was worried of becoming infamous for the wrong reasons, being mis-understood etc. 

But now I have decidede to take the risk. Here's the story that tells the tale of double standards - 

As most are aware, I have worked on driver education videos. The response of those who have viewed them, including a DCP from a city in South was very encouraging. The DCP in fact said, he had as yet not come across anything equal to what the videos offer within India. 

Naturally, encouraged by positive feedback I was and am keen for the videos to be seen by everyone who drives in India. In the process I started wondering whether the industry would be keen to sponsor distribution of the videos. In May 07 I wrote an e-mail to Tata Motors, I got two positive replies from two different offices (one in Thane and the other in Colaba, Mumbai). I send them both a DVD with the 17 videos for their perusal. And then waited, waited and waited for them to come back on this.

No communication is communication. But given that they had made me go through the trouble of sending them DVDs all the way from UK (via my parents in Pune) I thought I will ask for a feedback. So I wrote again in Jan 08. Much of me thought that there will be no communnication. Part of me imagined they will reply with a polite 'no thanks, but we have better videos, we have other plans on road safety.......'

What I got from Debashish Ray, Head - Corporate Communications, Tata Motors Limited however shocked me. While I may produce a PDF print of the communication trail, here is the reply -

Start quote

Thank you very much for your mail. 
 
We do appreciate the importance of drivers' education. As you will have noticed, companies choose focus areas in which they want to play a role in larger society. We have chosen health, water management, livelihood generation, environment protection, in areas adjacent to our operations, as our focus areas.
 
We believe that driver education is better achieved through public-private partnership between state authorities and NGOs like yourselves.
 
I am responding to you, because you said you will appreciate a response. 

End quote

While I have remained stunned questioning where the legacy of Sir Jamshedji has gone, I still can't make out how the company that sepnt millions making a Nano and are proud owners now of Jaguar and Land Rover do not think road safety as one amongst many of their corporate social responsibilities? And roads in India kill more than most diseases.  Equally I must say I am baffled by their wish to acquire agricultural land or a 1000 acres from an Agriculture University but claim to work on enviornment protection. 

To be fair to Tata, I also attempted to contact Maruti in this regard, they never responded (although one dealer who also has a franchise for Maruti Driving School said, they seem to want to rather use antiquated videos from Australia, although your videos seem more relevant). 

Perhaps my effort to keep everything FREE was a stupidity.

A mistake I have no regrets about.

ASJ