Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
The purpose
of CSR is to give back to the community, take part in philanthropic causes and
create positive social value.
In India, CSR
activities by companies are guided by section 135 of companies act.
·
annual turnover of
1,000 crore INR and more, or a net worth of 500 crore INR and more, or a net
profit of five crore INR and more.
·
spend of 2% of
average PBT during the three immediately preceding financial years
·
Areas of activities
a.
Eradicating
hunger, poverty and malnutrition, and
making available safe drinking water.
b.
Promoting
education, including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills.
c.
Promoting gender
equality, empowering women, setting up homes and hostels for women and orphans.
d.
Ensuring
environmental sustainability, ecological balance, protection of flora and
fauna, animal welfare, agroforestry, conservation of natural resources and
maintaining quality of soil, air and water.
e.
Protection of
national heritage, art and culture including restoration of buildings and sites
of historical importance and works of art, setting up public libraries;
promotion and development of traditional art and handicrafts.
f.
Measures for the
benefit of armed forces veterans, war widows and their dependents.
g.
Training to
promote rural sports, nationally recognised sports, Paralympic sports and
Olympic sports
h.
Contribution to
the prime minister's national relief fund or any other fund set up by the
central govt.
i. Other Contributions:
1. Contribution to incubators or research and development projects in the field of science, technology, engineering and medicine.
2. Contributions to public funded Universities and others.
j.
Rural development
projects.
k.
Slum area
development.
l. Disaster
management, including relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction activities.
How companies can
benefit from CSR work?
A medium and large
size project will need hundreds of acres of land. However, land acquisition has
been proved to be difficult, even in areas where land is less productive. Even
if Govt acquires the land (seeing the political fall-out of forcible acquisition
from reluctant owners/farmers) govts are, these days, reluctant to act) and
hand over to the project proponent, they face a lot of resistance/unrest from
locals during project implementation/commercial operation, resulting in
completion delays and consequences there-off. These problems can be managed by ensuring
effective CSR intervention.
Rural areas in
India lack basic amenities/facilities, like quality health care, education etc.
Livelihood opportunities are minimum. Agriculture and animal husbandry are
major sources of income. Rural women are
mostly a disenfranchised lot with low access to education, early marriage,
early motherhood. As such, three major areas of CSR activities, in DIZ
(Directly impacted Zone) areas may be,
1.
Providing basic
health-care facilities
2.
Implementing
livelihood generation programmes
3.
Women empowerment
The goodwill that
effective implementation of these projects will generate among the rural folks
will go a long way to ensure peaceful, unhindered implementation of the project.
A running factory
can receive whole hearted support and minimum interruptions from local
community, thereby reducing revenue loss etc, if these projects are implemented
well.
Author: Aloke Bhattacharjee
Nice easy elaboration of the subject.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the major difference when CSR was not a act?
The act ensures that companies spend a determined sum of money on some specified activities. Before the act came into force, this was not the case.
ReplyDeleteFor example, any CSR spend on a school, established by promoters in the project premises where the children of its employees are educated will not qualify for CSR spend under "Education". Earlier, this had been the practice.
Thanks
ReplyDelete