Access to quality education can help bridge social inequity in India, say experts

India must spend Rs 10 lakh crore to bridge the social inequity in the country. While a bulk of the spending on social sector schemes will have to continue to come in from the government, a lot of us need to do their bit as well. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, philanthropy and small contributions from the general public will alleviate some of this inequity.

According to a Bain & Co report, India’s uber rich will have to increase their donations by eight times to match their UK and Chinese counterparts, and by 13 times to give more than the millionaires and the billionaires in the US.

Worryingly, the report shows that philanthropic contributions in India have only grown at an annual rate of a paltry 6 percent, from Rs 16,000 crore in the 2014-15 fiscal to Rs 22,000 crore in 2020-21.

However, there is a silver lining. India’s new-age entrepreneurs who have come to gather great wealth in recent times, are donating more generously. The Bain report says, tech founders constituted about eight percent of the total ultra high networth (HNI) wealth and contributed to 35 percent of the total donations in 2020-21 and there seems to be scope to do much more.

The 'IIFL Wealth Hurun India 40 & under self-made rich list 2022' released yesterday saw 14 new entrants, all of whom are startup founders. The cumulative wealth of the entrants in the list has increased by 11 percent in comparison to last year, currently standing at Rs 1,84,000 crore. A reflection of this trend can be seen in the Young India Philanthropic Pledge (YIPP) which is an initiative for Indians below the age of 45 with a net worth of over Rs 1,000 crore to publicly pledge 25 percent or more of their wealth to philanthropy.

As part of its first project, YIPP has joined hands with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide a funding of Rs 50 crore over a period of 3 years with the aim of modernising government schools in rural Karnataka.

The Young India Philanthropic Pledge is an example of the 'shovel-ready and fully-designed vehicles for giving' that Bain suggests in its solutions to help India’s rich give more.

CNBC-TV18 spoke to Prashanth Prakash, Co-Founder & Partner at Accel India; Nikhil Kamath, Co-Founder of Zerodha & True Beacon; Amitabh Shah, Founder of Yuva Unstoppable; and Arnav Kapur of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to discuss way of bridging India’s social inequity.