Corporates spend 50% CSR funds in education, skill development: Report

Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Wipro, Tata Steel, NTPC, Indian Oil Corporation & ONGC spent more than their prescribed CSR budgets in FY 2017-18, according to the India CSR Outlook Report.

The report was published by NGOBOX which analysed CSR spends of 359 companies. The companies were short-listed on the basis of Rs 1 crore or above prescribed CSR spend in FY 2017-18. BSE-listed or subsidiary of a BSE-listed company were considered.

The prescribed CSR Budget of these 359 companies was Rs 9,543.51 crore whereas the actual CSR spend was Rs 8875.93 crore. This accounted for 3/4th of the total CSR spend in India

Reliance Industries was the top spender that spent more than its prescribed CSR budget.

The top ten 10 companies together spent Rs 3,306 crore as part of their CSR fund, while their prescribed CSR spend was Rs 3,160 crore. There is an increase in the prescribed CSR from 6 per cent to 8 per cent  in the actual CSR spend from FY 16-17 and the number of projects have also increased by 25 per cent from the previous year. This indicates a sense of seriousness among companies as they strive to match the prescribed CSR requirements with the actual CSR spends.

Some other interesting findings from the report were that CSR fund deposit in PM Relief Fund has gone substantially down by 80 per cent from FY 15-16 to FY 17-18. 

The states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat together received over 25 per cent of India's total CSR fund. The north-eastern states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura have received lowest CSR funding so far.

Public sector enterprises account for over 1/4th of India's total CSR spend which comes to Rs 2,419 crore. Oil, refinery and petrochemicals sector companies command almost 1/4th of the CSR fund of India, which is Rs 2,092 crore while the lowest is Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals with a CSR compliance of just Rs 294 crore.

CSR funding in education and skill development areas have increased by 50 per cent from FY 15-16 to FY 17-18 which comes to Rs 3,121 crore.

Over 1/3rd of the CSR spend is on education and skill development projects while over 1/4th of the CSR spend is on WASH and healthcare projects, which is Rs 2,385 crore.

Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, requires companies with net worth of Rs 500 crore or more, or with annual turnover of Rs 1,000 crore or more, or with a net profit of Rs 5 crore or more, to mandatorily spend 2 per cent of the average net profit of the preceding three years on CSR activities, establish a CSR committee and report CSR activities.