State-run firms partially funded Sardar Patel's Statue of Unity under CSR

Public sector companies may have spent more on the Sardar Patel statue, billed as the world’s tallest, than was recently noted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). The country’s topmost auditor had flagged the contributions in a report because the money came from the companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) budgets, even though the statue did not qualify under the relevant provision.

The CAG mentioned five companies giving Rs 1.47 billion for the statue in its report for 2016-17.  But an analysis of Prime Database numbers and of listed companies’ disclosures shows that a dozen firms contributed at