Nirmayan Charity Pro-Am Raises Money for Pratham

Prominent Indian business leaders teed off alongside top golfers at the Nirmayan Charity Pro-Am golf tournament on January 7th hosted by Pratham and Nirmayan at the luxurious Oxford Golf Resort in Pune. Founded by golfer Rajiv Datar, the event brings together professionals and amateur enthusiasts for 18 holes of Texas Scramble, which pairs one professional with three amateur players on one team.

The tournament presented an opportunity to celebrate Pratham’s success and recognize the corporate partners whose support makes our work possible. Ajay Piramal from Piramal Group, Pramit Jhaveri from Citibank, and Sufal Malhotra from Vodafone were just a few of the notable names in attendance.

Former Pratham USA Chairman Dinyar Devitre and former DC Chapter President Rakesh Bhatia also made the trip to India for the occasion. Rakesh, a partner at PriceWaterhouseCooper, was instrumental in introducing PwC India to Pratham at a time when the company was searching for a reputable NGO partner to satisfy India’s CSR law, which requires companies to spend 2% of their net profit on social development.

Watch Rakesh Bhatia discuss how he and PwC India became involved with Pratham.

More than twenty professional golfers gave their time to be a part of the event including Shiv Kapur, Rashid Khan, Chirag Kumar, Manav Jain, Rahul Bajaj, Rahil Ganjee, SP Chowrasia, and Kunal Bhasin with Pro Mukesh Kumar and his teammates Ajay Anand, Ashok Hiremath and Sanjiv Malhotra taking top honors with a round of 17 under par.

The event culminated in an award ceremony and auction at the J W Mariott, Pune. The auction, hosted by golfer Kunal Bhasin, raised over Rs. 7 lakh for Pratham. Popular auction items included legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar’s bat and autographed shoes from golfer Anirban Lahiri and tennis star David Ferrer.