Indian Firms Waking Up to HIV Threat

Increasingly, Indian businesses are learning the benefits of HIV prevention while HIV prevalence is still, by some estimates, less than 1 percent. But is this due to altruism or business sense?

The cost of late intervention is 3.5-7.5 times the cost of early prevention, according to the International Labor Organization. ILO estimates the cost of providing antiretroviral treatment is 20,000 rupees a year ($431 US), excluding the costs of absenteeism and opportunistic infections.

However, Denis Broun, India's UNAIDS coordinator, adds some perspective: "There is no dearth of manpower in India. So, if one was to look at things cynically, if you lose an employee and advertise the position you're going to have a hundred applicants." "A company can have a superb policy for its 300 or 400 core staff, but if it doesn't trickle down to their informal workforce, then it's not reaching the people who really need it," Broun said. Many firms rely heavily upon migrant subcontractors.

Launched by the Confederation of Indian Industry in 2001, the Indian Business Trust for HIV and AIDS has had about 500 members so far sign onto its HIV policy to educate employees and not discriminate against those infected. Trust members include Hero Honda Motors and Tata Steel Ltd.

Corporate decency and the desire to save money both motivated Larsen & Toubro Ltd., one of India's largest engineering firms, to educate its workforce about HIV/AIDS, said R.N. Mukhija, one of its directors. The company is aware that about a dozen staff are infected, but Mukhija says more would have been infected without its HIV prevention strategy, which has been expanding since the mid-1980s.

At Prakash Industries Ltd., Modicare Foundation trainers recently taught 1,300 employees about HIV/AIDS for five days a month over seven months. The cost, 80,000 rupees ($1,724 US), was not much for a large company's training budget. "It has to be fun or the message doesn't get across," said Sumant Kumar, a coordinator for the foundation, which also teaches long-haul truckers about HIV and condom use.

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