India Inc takes CSR cues from Centre

Mumbai: Ninety-five of the top 100 companies listed on the National Stock Exchange  have aligned their CSR projects with the government’s development initiatives, especially such Swachh Bharat Mission, Skill India and National Health Mission, said a survey conducted by Ficci and NextGen.

The survey on social responsibility activities included public and private sector companies. Among the participating companies, two per cent were newcomers allocating money for CSR for the first time. According to the survey, children were the main beneficiaries of their CSR projects. “About 31 per cent of the companies focused their projects on children, followed by women (22 per cent) and environment (17 per cent),” the survey said.

About 21 per cent of the participating companies indicated their efforts were aligned towards promoting education, special education and vocation skills. This was followed by eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting health care, safe drinking water and sanitation ensuring environmental sustainability and rural development projects as the other primary work areas.

Nearly half (about 40 per cent) implemented projects through their company foundation and another 36 per cent said that they do it directly while about 65 per cent respondents reported partnering with the government or another corporate for execution of projects. The majority of the respondents (about 83 per cent) said they would increase their CSR spend in the 2016-17, while only six per cent expected a decline, and another nine per cent cited no change.

However, there are obstacles in implementing CSR projects and among them according to the survey were inadequate clarity on laws and tax related regulations; delay in project implementation due to problems in getting NOC from a competent authority; clearances for land for rural infrastructure projects; lack of clarity on NGO accreditation and availability of suitable NGOs; lack of skilled human resource that are willing to work at grassroots level; lack of CSR professionals for project implementation and unavailability of doctors and medical staff in remote villages to run primary care facilities if CSR project involves provision of healthcare facilities etc.