Bharti commits Rs 200 cr for schools in villages

Bharti has announced a corpus of Rs 200 cr to set up primary schools across rural India.

Within days of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealing to the private sector to fulfil their corporate social responsibility, Bharti Group on Thursday announced a corpus of Rs 200 crore to set up primary schools across rural India.

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"I have taken inspiration from people like Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft... We have picked up primary education as a mission under the banner of 'Bharti Foundation'.

"We have planned to open a few hundreds of schools within next 18-20 months," said Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Group, whose telecom arm is the largest private sector player in the space.

The Foundation will also set up Teachers' Training facilities throughout the country to impact the quality of education at a much larger level.

The promoters of Bharti Enterprises (three brothers-- Sunil, Rajan and Rakesh Mittal) and their associates have committed an initial endowment of Rs 200 crore to Bharti Foundation to support its work. The contribution will start immediately and will be completed in two years, Mittal told reporters.

The Bharti Foundation would be setting up multiple schools in villages and the management of the Foundation has already started discussions with various Panchayats for land, Mittal said, adding that each school would entail a capital expenditure of Rs 10-15 lakh and Rs 5-7 lakh operational expenses.