Annual filings by companies on development CSR expenditure totals over 1,44,159 crores in last five FYs (2019-20 to 2023-24)
Government maintains a central database of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure reported by the companies in the MCA 21 registry. All data related to CSR expenditure filed by companies in MCA21 registry including state-wise, year-wise, company-wise and project-wise is available in public domain at www.csr.gov.in.
As per provisions of the Companies Act, 2013, CSR is a Board driven process and the Board of the company is empowered to plan, decide, execute and monitor CSR activities of the company. The existing legal provisions regarding formation of CSR committee, formulation of CSR policy, Annual Action Plan on CSR, certification of CSR expenditure by Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and audit of CSR expenditure by statutory auditors, etc., are the mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability.
Further, Rule 8 of the Companies (CSR Policy) Rules, 2014 provides that every company having average CSR obligation of 10 crore rupees or more in the three immediately preceding financial years, shall undertake impact assessment, through an independent agency, of their CSR projects having outlays of one crore rupees or more, and which have been completed not less than one year before undertaking the impact study. The details of CSR activities, Impact Assessment, etc., are required to be reported by all the companies in the ‘Annual Report on CSR’ including annual action plan on CSR which is part of the Company’s Board Report.
There is no provision of allocation of CSR funds in CSR legal framework and as per Section 135 (5) of the Act CSR mandated companies shall spend at least 2% of the average net profits of the company during the three immediately preceding financial years in areas or subjects specified in Schedule VII of the Act. On the basis of annual filings made by companies in the MCA 21 registry, development CSR expenditure for the last five Financial Years i.e. FY 2019-20 to FY 2023-24 are as follows:
|
FYs
|
CSR Amt. in Rs. Crore
|
|
FY 2019-20
|
24,965.82
|
|
FY 2020-21
|
26,210.95
|
|
FY 2021-22
|
27,141.45
|
|
FY 2022-23
|
30,932.08
|
|
FY 2023-24
|
34,908.75
|
This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs; and the Minister of State in the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways, Shri Harsh Malhotra in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
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NB/ONP