Mumbai most expensive Indian city for expats, 19 most expensive in Asia

100 crore to support a vaccine development. Crisil said it analysed social sector spends by 130 companies, of which 113 have pledged support either in cash or kind, it said, adding that 84 of them contributed Rs 7,537 crore which can be classified as CSR spends. Of the remaining companies, 29 contributed Rs 373 crore to other funds, facilitated voluntary donations of Rs 84 crore which will not be classified as CSR spends, it said.

It can be noted that there were reports of contributions done to chief ministers' relief funds not being accounted under the CSR spends.

The Crisil report said a bulk 67 per cent or 56 of the 84 entities which have spent money are from the private sector and account for two-thirds of the contributions of Rs 7,537 crore, while 24 are public sector ones which contributed 30 per cent and seven were foreign ones.

Of the 84 corporates that pledged support in cash, 36 companies from Maharashtra spent Rs 4,728 crore (63 per cent), followed by National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi with 13 companies spending 17 per cent, while nine companies from Gujarat chipped in with 7 per cent of the Rs 7,537 crore of spends.

In this set of 84 companies, 48 have spent on the COVID19 cause at a corporate level and not at the group level, with 28 of them spending more than half of their total CSR spend of FY19 and 16 companies having spent at par with FY19 or even exceeded it, the report said.

Other causes may take a back seat in FY21 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report rued.

"The 'C' in CSR, the acronym for corporate social responsibility, can very well refer to COVID-19, it said. It also said that the overall CSR spending rose 14 per cent to Rs 11,392 crore in FY19, five years after it was made mandatory for companies of a certain size to allocate money for social good. Of the 4,817 listed companies, 1,976 met the criteria for mandatory CSR spending of which 1,276 actually spent, it said, adding 129 gave reasons like difficulty in identifying projects for not spending, 102 did not have any mentions in the annual reports and 150 said they were not required to spend.

NEW DELHI: India's financial capital Mumbai has emerged as the most expensive city in the country for expatriates in terms of cost of living, a survey said on Tuesday.

According to Mercer's '2020 Cost of Living Survey', Mumbai is the 60th most expensive city for expatriates globally, while it ranks 19th in Asia.

Mumbai is the most expensive among Indian cities surveyed, followed by New Delhi (101st globally) and Chennai (143rd globally). Bengaluru (171) and Kolkata (185) are the

least expensive Indian cities in the rankings, the survey said.

Overall, all Indian cities surveyed showed a jump in rankings by a minimum of four places, with New Delhi climbing the most by 17 positions and narrowly escaping the top 100

list of most expensive cities for expatriates.

The global list was topped by Hong Kong, followed by Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) in second position. Japan's Tokyo and Switzerland's Zurich remain in the third and fourth positions, respectively, whereas Singapore is in fifth position, down two places from last year.

"With challenges of cost considerations and complexity of operating globally in today's environment, reinventing talent mobility programs is imperative in the future agenda, postcrisis," Padma Ramanathan, Global Talent Mobility Practice Leader at Mercer said.

She further added that "it is not surprising that Indian cities are emerging to be among key contenders providing a business case to relocate operations for manufacturing or services for reasons such as skill availability, cost competitiveness and attractiveness to mobilize executives to conduct business".

Other cities figuring in the top ten in the global ranking are the United States' New York City at sixth place, China's Shanghai at seventh, Switzerland's Bern and Geneva at eighth and ninth place, respectively, and Beijing at the tenth slot.

On the other hand, Tunis in Tunisia, Windhoek (Namibia), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) and Karachi (Pakistan) were ranked at the bottom as the least expensive cities in the world.