Social projects bypassed as firms spend CSR funds to curry favour with govt

While the steady increase in companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) spends since 2014 under the Companies Act is to be welcomed, a disaggregated look at the spending leads to the disturbing conclusion that CSR funds are becoming subject to political pressures.

In 2017-18, the mandatory CSR expenditure under Section 135 of the Companies Act was Rs 100 billion, according to the PRIME Database Group’s analysis of 1,627 NSE-listed companies.

This shows a growth of 11% per annum over the previous year. In line with previous years, and as was to be expected, the maximum spending was on education (Rs 38.31 billion) followed