AIDS makes corporate sector gird its loins for battle

The Indian corporate sector is going all out to tackle the modern plague in the workplace. The reason: a pandemic in the industrial sector could set the economy back by a whopping Rs 30,000 crore a year.

By Mukesh Khosla

The cycle of doom starts almost instantly. When a worker tests positive for HIV or AIDS, he invariably begins facing discrimination at the workplace. Some managements, anxious to get on with business as usual, literally quarantine him in a red alert zone, often not even being averse to giving him the sack. From then on, it becomes difficult for him to maintain a regular job.

The statistics are chilling. The number of AIDS cases has been shooting up in the corporate sector and, according to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), almost 75 per cent of the cases were found to be below 45 years old —the most economically-productive category of the workforce. This explains the industry's urgency to address the problem on a war footing.

The human resources development wings of many leading organisations are now busy formulating programmes that not just acquaint workers of the dangers of unprotected sex but also of the consequences of HIV and AIDS. The rising figures have set the alarm bells ringing. The implicit costs of AIDS-afflicted workers can be very high for the industry in terms of increased medical bills, absenteeism, lower productivity, loss of experienced personnel, and increased labour training costs.

A study conducted by UNICEF reveals that if the trend is not arrested, there could be an outbreak of an AIDS epidemic in the industrial sector within the next five years, setting the Indian economy back by a whopping Rs 30,000 crore annually.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is also getting increasingly anxious about the rising incidence of AIDS at the workplace. It has devised a collection of modules that contain information on how AIDS is transmitted, the methods of prevention, and policy issues.

Given the grim picture, leading companies, multinationals and transnationals are supplementing government initiatives by formulating company action at the workplace and making their workers aware on the virtues of safe sex.

Organisations such as the Associated Cement Company (ACC), Ashok Leyland, Godrej and Boyce, Ballarpur Industries and others are setting up antiretroviral (ARV) centres. Godrej has a clinic in its Mumbai hospital, the ACC has set up a clinic in Wadi in Karnataka, and Apollo Tyres has set up three clinics within its plant premises.

The Steel Authority of India (SAIL), has a policy in place to deal with HIV/AIDS. The SAIL AIDS Control Programme, in association with NACO, has already being implemented across the company. Engineering giant Larsen and Toubro first launched an AIDS awareness-raising programme way back in 1985. One of the company's important focus areas is youth, including apprentices, trainees, employees' children and local municipal schools.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has floated a new programme called Access to Care and Treatment (ACT) that guides business houses about setting up AIDS testing clinics. The CII's AIDS awareness programme includes lectures and counselling at the factory level, providing workers with a set of awareness posters, slides and film shows.

While pharmaceutical major Ranbaxy is collaborating with the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation for the distribution of low-cost ARV drugs, Wockhard Pharma has set up the Wockhardt Harvard Medical International HIV and AIDS Educational and Research Foundation, which has raised 4,700 specialised care providers that include nurses, doctors and paramedics.

A number of companies are adopting an aggressive approach and moving beyond just the awareness programme. Take the case of Ashok Leyland. The company's Driver Training Centre at Namakkal, near Salem, spread over 2.5 acres, has comprehensive infrastructural facilities, including a driving range with all configurations of roads. As the centre started becoming popular, authorities discovered that a flesh trade had begun to flourish in the neighbouring areas.

In order to check the menace, the management of the automobile company launched an AIDS awareness campaign. The sustained campaign not just put an end to the flesh trade, but also rehabilitated the "middlemen" into more meaningful ways of earning a livelihood. Such has been the success that an AIDS and HIV awareness course has become a part of the training centre's curriculum.

Like Ashok Leyland, a number of other organisations are working out individual strategies, besides subscribing to the CII's awareness programme. HRD managers are applying their minds to issues like the company's role vis-a-vis leave and medical compensation when an employee tests HIV positive.

Companies are fast realising that a healthy workplace is vital for progress. Preventive services such as condom promotion and counselling referrals are offered to ensure the personal health of workers.

Even Bill Gates, through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, emphasises proper tests and free distribution of condoms. "Till the AIDS vaccine is developed, there is a great need for prevention and precaution," he said. "Otherwise, there will be an epidemic which will be hard to control."

And if the epidemic comes, as Gates darkly predicts, it will hit business very seriously indeed. In fact, almost 80 per cent of Africa's commercial bankruptcies have been traced to AIDS. That is the reason that leading companies are making an all-out effort to shut out this most dreaded of modern plagues.