• March 24, 2020

Corporate Social Responsibility in India

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in India has seen significant interest for several years as NGOs, companies, social workers and scientific authors are involved in working towards betterment of the underprivileged section of the society. India is the first country in the world to make corporate social responsibility (CSR) mandatory, following an amendment to the Companies Act, 2013. Businesses need to donate 2% of their profits in areas such as education, poverty alleviation, gender equality, health, hunger and many more as part of the CSR compliance.

In 2014, the government of India passed legislation that requires large companies to spend at least 2 percent of their profits every year on corporate social responsibility activities.

Some of the major areas of concern today in 2020 in the society are:

• Food
• Potable Water
• Clothes
• Sanitation
• Shelter
• Education
• Health
• Women Rights and Empowerment
• Vocational Training
• Differently Abled People
• Children Education
• Environment
• Natural Calamities
• Animal Welfare

Some of the Strategies for Corporate Social Responsibility Implementation and Execution will be discussed in another blog.

Some of the most popular trends in the area of corporate social responsibility include local community, employee engagement, diversity and inclusion initiatives.

CSR has enormous positives for the benefit of the society. Some of them are:

Examples of benefits to the Community and the General Public

• Charitable contributions
• Employee volunteer programs with their respective interests and strengths
• Corporate involvement in community education, employment, shelter programs and many more

Examples of benefits to the Environment

• Material recyclability
• Higher use of renewable resources
• Integration of environmental management tools into business plans, including life-cycle assessment and costing, environmental management standards, and eco-labeling.

Examples of benefits to a Company:

• Enhanced brand image and trust for the company
• Increased sales and customer loyalty

It would not be wrong to say that the leading global companies of 2020 will be those that would provide an approach that accommodates solutions to world’s major challenges, such as poverty, climate change, resource depletion, globalization and demographic shift.

The underprivileged sections of the society are deprived of one of more of these: food, clothing, shelter, education, access to sanitation, health, potable water. It is important that companies address these issues in the Corporate Social Responsibility activities executed by them or by implementing agencies.

A few more areas that need to be addressed are Climate and Environment Changes, Vocational Training and Employability, Natural Calamities such as Earthquake and Floods.