LISTED COMPANIES’ CSR SPEND TOPS ~100 BN IN 2017-18
Indian firms’ charitable spends rose for the third year in a row in 2017-18 (FY18) to over ~100
billion in FY18. The 10.71% growth rate in Corporate Social Responsibility spends is higher than in the previous year (7.63%). An analysis of figures from PRIME Database showed that education topped the list of spends by category, that intermediaries are playing an important role in disbursal of funds, and that the biggest recipients of funds ironically were relatively rich states. SACHIN P MAMPATTA writes
Indian companies’ charitable spends rose for the third year in a row in 201718 to ~100 billion. The 10.71 per cent growth rate in corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending is higher than that in the previous year (7.63 per cent).
An analysis of figures from PRIME Database showed education topped the list of spends by category, which intermediaries are playing an important role in dispersal of funds, and that the biggest recipients of funds ironic ally were relatively rich states.
The analysis is based on an examination of 1,627 National Stock Exchange companies who have filed their annual reports. There were 1,080 firms left after eliminating ineligible firms and ones where data was not available. The total amount spent is up more than 50 per cent over the ~64.61 billion in 2014-15, the earliest year for which data is available ( seechart1).
Spending on education and vocation skills accounted for ~38.31 billion. This was the biggest category where firms spent money. Spends for helping with hunger, poverty and health care was second at ~24.85 billion. Environmental sustainability came in third with spends of ~11.82 billion ( seechart2). These allocations remained constant over the last year, said Pranav Haldea, managing director of PRIME Database Group. The Prime Minister’s Relief Fund saw allocations more than double, rising to ~1.72 billion. However, allocations to two key government programmes saw a dip. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan allocations were down 10 per cent to ~5.2 billion while money towards cleaning the Ganga saw a 47 per cent fall to ~0.8 billion. Oil and gas major Reliance Industries topped the CS R list. Its total expenditurewas ~7.5 billion. Oil& Natural Gas Corporation came in second at ~5 billion. Tat a Consultancy Services was third with spends of ~4 billion. There were twopublicsector, andthreeprivate firms in the top five list( see chart 3). Inter mediation played a vital role in disbursaloffunds. Animplementation agency was involved in over half (53.3 percent) ofthespends. Thisincluded where spending happened only throughan implementation agency alone and where it was done in partnership withthecompany. Companiesspent only 42.59 percent of the money directly.( seechart4). Thismayalsobe because of the lack of institutional preparedness at many companies. The PRIME data also showed that almost half of listed companies did not have a CS R committee as required by regulations. Interestingly, therelatively well-off states seemed to attract a lot of thespends. Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi dominated in terms of money received. States like Bi h ar remained out ofthetop10list( seechart5).