NEW DELHI: Billionaire Azim Premji on Wednesday pleged to gave away 34 per cent of his shares in Wipro Ltd to charitable causes.
The India’s second-richest man has raised the bar for philanthropic commitment and earmarked economic benefits of shares worth Rs 52,750 crore.
“He has done this (contribution) by additionally earmarking all economic benefits for philanthropic purposes, in approximately 34 per cent of the shares in Wipro Limited (current market value Rs 52,750 crore), held by certain entities controlled by him,” according to the statement by the Azim Premji Foundation.
“With this action, the total value of the philanthropic endowment corpus contributed by Mr Premji is $21 billion [Rs 1.45 lakh crore], which includes 67% of economic ownership of Wipro,” the company said in a press release.
The statement added that the Azim Premji Foundation’s philanthropic activities will scale up in the next few years.
“The team driving the field work in education is expected to grow significantly from the current 1,600 people, while the Azim Premji University [in Bengaluru] will expand to have 5,000 students with 400 faculty members across multiple programs,” it added. “The grant-making activities will also continue to expand rapidly, growing three times from its current levels, supporting good work across multiple domains of social importance in India.”
With this, social media was abuzz with praises with some calling him ‘corporate robinhood’.
Seeing the philanthropic activities of Bill Gates, Azim Premji… they are like Corporate Robin Hoods
— George Philip (@sacredjobshr) March 14, 2019
Hats off to Mr Azim Premji for his unprecedented philanthropic activities & charitable contribution to the Society; his latest contribution of 7.5 billion US $ brings total to 21 billion US $; he still flies economy class, avoids costly cars & ostentatious displays of wealth..
— Vikas Pahwa Sr Adv (@vikaspahwasradv) March 14, 2019