The salt-to-software descriptor, often used for the Tata Group , is barely enough. You could throw in cars, steel rails and pulses in between. But imagine Tata goats, or for that matter milk or apricots. The sellers do not pay any fees to the Tatas for using the brand, but they sell in the name of Tata nevertheless, with the blessings of the Tatas. Goats in Uttar Pradesh, milk in Manipur and apricots in Leh are products from projects helped by the Tata trusts. The Tata trusts are a group of public charitable organisations that engage in philanthropic activities across the country. They are in the news today, not because of their philanthropy; doing good rarely makes news.They are in focus because the trusts, led by Ratan Tata, chairman of the board of trustees, are also the largest shareholder (66%) of Tata Sons, the holding company of India’s largest conglomerate. On October 24, the Tata Sons board had removed Cyrus Mistry as the chairman of Tata Sons, bringing Ratan Tata back as interim chairman. Over the last month, the story about a struggle for control between Mistry, whose family owns18% in Tata Sons, and the trusts has emerged, with insinuations that the opaque structure of the trusts hides much more than the occasional animal sold in its name; that trustees involve themselves in operational decisions of not just Tata Sons but various publicly listed Tata companies, where Tata Sons holds substantial stakes; and that, all this undermines corporate governance principles. The Tata trust offices are on the 26th floor of Mumbai’s World Trade Centre, in Cuff Parade. The premises have an old-new feel.Everything has a fresh coat of paint. The layout is traditional with cubicles and chambers. The reception has bright red walls, with photographs of JN Tata, Sir Dorabji Tata, Sir Ratan Tata and JRD Tata. Three-and-a-half years back, after Ratan Tata retired from Tata Sons, he moved all the employees of the trusts to sit together on two floors of the WTC. In August 2013, R Venkataramanan, Tata’s former executive assistant was moved into the trusts. In 2014, he became the executive trustee and in 2016, was elevated as the managing trustee.“It’s an open book, open source,” Venkataramanan said repeatedly during his interview with ET Magazine, asserting that there’s nothing secretive about how the trusts operate. In fact, a few years back there was little cohesion. The eight trusts, over the years, operated almost independent of each other. A seeker of a grant could approach a different Tata trust after failing with one. Venkataramanan says: “Three years ago was the first joint meet of all the program teams of the trusts. The last meet before that was 6.5 years ago.”Going through the open book and travelling to interiors of India where the Tata trusts run projects right from Gadchiroli in Maharashtra to parts of Tripura where most people speak in Kokborok, has left Venkataramanan with a “left of centre alignment”. He explains how the Tata trusts try to move away from the normal definition of charity and engage in projects that create livelihood and improve the economy of the area. In fact, that has been the mandate right from JRD Tata’s time.One of the key programmes that Ratan Tata takes keen interest in is focused on nutrition and fortifying food with micronutrients. Tata trusts have done some advanced work with the University of Toronto on adding iron, apart from iodine, to salt and has helped the government of Tripura procure the salt. Just last week Samajwadi Salt, a similar effort by the UP government, was launched with the government getting it at Rs 12 a kilo. A reverse auction process set up by the Tata trusts helped. In Maharashtra, the trusts have worked on pilots to fortify rice and wheat sold through ration shops with iron.Praveen Pardeshi, the principal secretary to Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, says what he likes about the Tata trusts is that they are demand driven. “Unlike other philanthropic organisations who want to build a building like a trophy and name it, the Tata trusts try to find out what is the need or what the government wants and work accordingly.” He speaks about how the government wanted a project in Gadchiroli that would help uplift the local economy without harming the forestry and the trusts funded a project based on bamboo.“They also provided the market linkages,” Pardeshi adds. The trusts have worked closely with Ronnie Screwvala’s Swades Foundation in some districts of Maharashtra. Screwvala says: “The strongest part of Tata trusts is their clarity of purpose and their domain knowledge based on varied experiences.”One of the most successful interventions by the trusts in recent years has been in Vijaywada, where they have worked in close collaboration with Lok Sabha MP Kesineni Srinivas, helping him map 264 villages in his constituency.It all started when the trusts wrote to all MPs saying they could help with their adopted villages under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. Srinivas wanted them to work on all the villages in his constituency. Today he is amazed that the team from the trusts actually individually mapped 10 lakh individuals in these villages and have data on them, their health and welfare needs as well as the number of cows and buffaloes owned by each family.Kesineni Srinivas told ET Magazine: “They worked on a project with Google called Internet Saathi, which helped village women in my constituency to use the Internet. Even the illiterate women were taught voice Internet. It is helping a lot these days after de-notification as people have adopted cashless transactions.”He echoes Pardeshi in describing how the trusts choose their projects. “Mostly it is brainstorming. Villagers actually come up with ideas.”Srinivas says he gets a call once a month from Ratan Tata, asking if any new area needs an intervention. From one village to a constituency to now building toilets in 800 villages in the Krishna districts, the Tata trusts are now increasing their footprint in the region, spending more money than the state and central government grants per toilet, bridging the gap by putting in the trusts’ own funds.There is big money in play — Rs 750 crore a year is what the trusts spend on philanthropy. They employ around 1,000 people directly and indirectly.While how the trusts spend and how they create a difference in the lives of the people of India is a lesser known story, how the trusts earn their money is much better known. The principal asset of the Tata trusts is, of course, their combined 66% holding in Tata Sons. Their earnings are the dividends that Tata Sons pays to the trusts. And Tata Sons own earnings are of course the dividends that it earns from various Tata companies.Venkataramanan told ET Magazine that the trusts and the trustees are well aware of the significance of their collective holding in Tata Sons. “We will have to do whatever it takes to ensure that the value of that asset doesn’t go down. In our fiduciary capacity as trustees, we have to take responsibility for that asset.” He added: “The trustees are personally accountable for the assets under the trust. There is unlimited liability.”On October 24, 2016 “whatever it takes” meant taking action to remove Cyrus Mistry from the chairmanship of Tata Sons. As the battle between the Mistry camp and the Tata Sons ensued, Mistry attacked the trusts, hinting that these are controlled by Ratan Tata himself and there is no accountability at the trusts level, given their huge assets. With Tata Sons holdings in various Tata companies valued at approximately $65-70 billion, the trusts’ holding in Tata Sons can be estimated to be worth $42-43 billion.Venkataramanan, however, asserts that it is not easy to spend and since the trusts are regulated by the charity commissioner any transaction above `5,000 has to be reported. He further asserts that even ideas proposed by Ratan Tata have to be passed by the board of trustees and that at times even his ideas get rejected (see “Every Major Decision Needs Approval of the Trustees”).The eight Tata trusts have people with a wide range of experience (see Tata Trusts in Brief). Some are old Tata hands while others are reputed professionals in their own right without any history of serving with the Tatas.KB Dadiseth, a former chairman of what was then Hindustan Lever, is a prime example. There are Tata veterans too like RK Krishna Kumar and NA Soonawala, apart from Ratan Tata’s brother Jimmy. The legal counsel always gets a seat in the trusts, and Jehangir Mistry from Mulla & Mulla is one of the trustees. Darius Khambata, one of the trustees, resigned from the trusts after Cyrus Mistry’s removal citing other demands on his time. TVS chairman and managing director Venu Srinivasan was inducted as a trustee soon afterwards. Srinivasan is also a member of the Tata Sons board.Khambata’s exit led to many questions being asked, including why Srinivasan was inducted at this juncture. These questions as well as those raised by Cyrus Mistry have their genesis in the situation that developed over the last four years where the interests of the trusts and those of the Tata Sons slowly seemed to diverge. After decades, the trusts, the majority owner of Tata Sons, had a head who wasn’t chairman of the holding company. This clash between philanthropy and corporate governance, if one may call it that, can easily recur in future, too. Vimal Bhandari, an avid corporate watcher and CEO of IndoStar Capital, says: “For the future of the group, I look upon to Ratan Tata to create a more efficient group architecture.”Only that can ensure that the Tata name will have a footprint that will go beyond the Tata brand.Managing Trustee of the Tata Trusts, R Venkataramanan, is a man caught in the eye of a storm, as the trusts try to establish their control over the Tata empire; the Mistry camp has taken potshots at him, and at other trustees like NA Soonawala and Ratan Tata himself. In his first interview since October 24, Venkataramanan tried to explain that the Tata trusts are not a secretive organisation. Edited Excerpts:Each trust is an independent legal entity created by the trust's respective deed, some of the trusts have common objects that are aligned to certain charitable goals, while some have flexibility.We have internally created tenures for the trustees on the two main trusts of 3 years and 5 years after which terms are renewable, but technically it is difficult to remove a trustee unless otherwise provided by law. The responsibilities of the trustees are joint and several. There is unlimited liability, the trustees are personally accountable for the assets under the trust. Every detail of the trust activity has to be filed with the charity commissioner. Any transaction of asset changes above Rs 5,000 has to be notified to the charity commissioner. Our work and philosophy is open book, open source, for all to see.For every major decision, we have to take the approval of the board of trustees. We have to make a presentation and answer their questions and many times proposals do get rejected. Even some ideas that Mr Tata brings to the board sometimes face questions and there have been cases where Mr Tata has asked me to drop ideas, if other trustees are not comfortable with it.On October 23, we had announced the Tata Institute of Active Genetics and Society (TIAGS), in collaboration with University of California, San Diego, to bring cutting edge genetics research for India’s use. Several states are pitching for it now. It all got drowned in what happened on October 24.