NSE-Listed Companies’ CSR Spending Surges 23% to ₹22,212 Crore in FY 2024-25: Report

NSE-listed companies have significantly expanded their social investment in FY 2024-25, signalling a stronger, broader, and more purposeful commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility across India.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spending by companies listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) witnessed a significant rise in the financial year 2024-25, reflecting a stronger commitment towards social responsibility and inclusive growth. According to data from primeinfobase, total CSR expenditure increased by 23 per cent to Rs. 22,212 crore, in comparison to Rs. 18,011 crore spent in 2023-24, marking one of the highest yearly jumps in recent years.

The growth has been driven by higher profits, stricter compliance, and a growing focus on impact-led initiatives across sectors such as education, healthcare, rural development, and environmental sustainability. A large majority of companies not only met their statutory CSR obligations but many also exceeded the prescribed spending limits, indicating a shift from compliance to conscious contribution.

The data further highlights trends in company-wise spending, sectoral allocation, geographic distribution, and evolving priorities, offering a comprehensive picture of how corporate India is shaping its CSR agenda in a post-pandemic and development-focused economy.

According to Pranav Haldea, Managing Director, PRIME Database Group, this was due to an astounding 22 per cent rise in average net profit (of the preceding 3 years) of these companies, 2 per cent of which needs to be spent on CSR activities as per regulatory requirements.

The 23 per cent increase in CSR spends follows an impressive 16 per cent increase seen in 2023-24, which was after 4 year of flattish spends, from Rs.14,776 crore in 2019-20 to just Rs.15,561 crore in 2022-23.

The CSR law, which came into force in April 2014, mandates companies, subject to the provisions of the Act, to invest two per cent of their net profit in CSR projects. Companies with net worth of Rs.500 crore and above or revenue of Rs.1,000 crore and above or net profit of Rs.5 crore and above have to spend two per cent of average net profits of last three years.

According to Haldea, it is encouraging to note that the Government is now considering his oft-advocated suggestion of revising these thresholds upwards, given the passage of time and “ease of doing business”. Relatively smaller companies should be kept out of the purview of this regulation, which was the original intent as well.

According to primeinfobase.com, 2,142 companies were listed on the NSE main board as on March 31, 2025. Of these 2,142 companies, annual reports for 2024-25 have been released by 2,081 companies. Of these 2,081 companies, 2,066 had details relating to CSR given in the annual reports, while no such details were available for the balance 15. Finally, of the 2,066 companies, 1,549 were obligated to spend on CSR, up from 1,399 companies in 2023-24. This analysis is based on these 1,549 companies.

According to report, the average net profit of these 1,549 companies over last three years was Rs. 11.76 lakh crore, up from Rs. 9.64 lakh crore in 2023-24. As per CSR requirements, the amount required to be spent by them was Rs.22,732 crore (2023-24: Rs.18,351 crore), against which they spent a slightly lower Rs.22,212 crore (2023-24: Rs.18,011 crore). According to Haldea, the shortfall can be explained by the increase in the amount that remained unspent , which was transferred by companies to the Unspent CSR Account (Rs.3,223 crore) for use in future years.

CSR Spends by companies listed on NSE over the last 11 years

* Set-off amount viz. excess amount spent in previous financial years, has been excluded
# includes administrative expenses and impact assessment cost

Company-wise Spends

The number of companies which spent on CSR went up to 1,521 (98 per cent of the 1,549 companies) in 2024-25 from 1,372 (98 per cent) in 2023-24. The balance 28 companies, despite being mandated, did not spend anything.

The top 10 companies in terms of CSR spends in FY 2024-25 were as follows:

Rank	Company	CSR Expenditure (₹ crore)#	Mkt. Cap. as on 31st March 2025 (₹ crore)
1	RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LTD.	1,309.50	17,99,819
2	HDFC BANK LTD.	1,068.03	12,27,929
3	TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LTD.	960.00	9,36,723
4	OIL & NATURAL GAS CORP. LTD.	929.08	3,63,067
5	ICICI BANK LTD.	801.12	9,16,216
6	TATA STEEL LTD.	584.61	2,56,162
7	INDIAN OIL CORP. LTD.	583.03	2,00,056
8	INFOSYS LTD.	526.26	5,39,920
9	ITC LTD.	461.50	3,79,627
10	NTPC LTD.	362.94	3,67,164

The top 10 companies together spent 34 per cent of the total spend on CSR.

The top 10 companies in terms of per cent of profit spent towards CSR were as follows:

Rank	Company	Mkt. Cap. as on 31st March 2025 (₹ crore)	Average Net Profit of Last 3 FY (₹ crore)	CSR Expenditure (₹ crore)#	% of Net Profit spent on CSR
1	STRIDES PHARMA SCIENCE LTD.	9,183	10.76	5.52	51.32
2	RITCO LOGISTICS LTD.	546	2.04	0.68	33.14
3	INTERGLOBE AVIATION LTD.	1,71,998	53.10	13.97	26.31
4	DUCON INFRATECHNOLOGIES LTD.	118	4.45	0.95	21.35
5	TEXMACO INFRASTRUCTURE & HOLDINGS LTD.	1,268	1.69	0.35	20.50
6	ARO GRANITE INDUSTRIES LTD.	37	2.76	0.50	18.00
7	SUNTECK REALTY LTD.	4,604	14.55	2.51	17.25
8	ORIENT PAPER & INDUSTRIES LTD.	383	27.10	4.43	16.35
9	LLOYDS METALS & ENERGY LTD.	80,946	497.71	69.34	13.93
10	COAL INDIA LTD.	2,79,849	812.40	95.73	11.78

Source: primeinfobase

The top 10 companies which saw maximum increase in CSR spends in absolute terms from last

Rank	Company	Mkt. Cap. as on 31st March 2025 (₹ crore)	CSR Expenditure 2023-24# (₹ crore)	CSR Expenditure 2024-25# (₹ crore)	Increase (₹ crore)
1	RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LTD.	17,99,819	900.00	1,309.50	409.50
2	OIL & NATURAL GAS CORP. LTD.	3,63,067	634.57	929.08	294.51
3	ICICI BANK LTD.	9,16,216	518.87	801.12	282.25
4	NTPC LTD.	3,67,164	200.57	362.94	162.37
5	TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LTD.	9,36,723	827.00	960.00	133.00
6	INDIAN OIL CORP. LTD.	2,00,056	457.71	583.03	125.32
7	HDFC BANK LTD.	12,27,929	945.31	1,068.03	122.72
8	KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK LTD.	73,975	119.73	241.20	121.47
9	ADANI POWER LTD.	3,32,333	39.06	141.92	102.86
10	BAJAJ FINANCE LTD.	5,62,046	179.52	257.50	77.98

While 438 companies (28 per cent) spent as much as prescribed, there were 751 companies (48 per cent) which exceeded their prescribed spending. The top 10 companies which exceeded their prescribed spending were as follows:

Rank	Company	Mkt. Cap. as on 31st March 2025 (₹ crore)	Prescribed CSR Expenditure (₹ crore)	Actual CSR Expenditure (₹ crore)#	Excess Spend (₹ crore)
1	RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LTD.	17,99,819	1,048.00	1,309.50	261.50
2	VEDANTA LTD.	2,88,196	15.00	123.00	108.00
3	JINDAL STEEL LTD.	1,22,370	167.03	267.42	100.39
4	COAL INDIA LTD.	2,79,849	16.25	95.73	79.48
5	WIPRO LTD.	2,12,746	124.50	202.60	78.10
6	NTPC LTD.	3,67,164	295.29	362.94	67.65
7	LLOYDS METALS & ENERGY LTD.	80,946	9.96	69.34	59.38
8	GUJARAT MINERAL DEVELOPMENT CORP. LTD.	19,218	21.57	78.59	57.02
9	GRASIM INDUSTRIES LTD.	1,86,513	35.90	88.54	52.64
10	OIL & NATURAL GAS CORP. LTD.	3,63,067	877.90	929.08	51.18

As per revised provisions in the Companies Act, such companies can set off such excess amounts spent against their CSR spends in the next three financial years.

There were also 28 companies, which despite reporting a loss, spent on CSR. The top 10 loss making companies in terms of amount spent on CSR were as follows:

Rank	Company	Mkt. Cap. as on 31st March 2025 (₹ crore)	Average Net Profit/Loss of Last 3 FY (₹ crore)	CSR Expenditure (₹ crore)#	Surplus Unspent Amount of Previous FYs (₹ crore), if any
1	TATA MOTORS PASSENGER VEHICLES LTD.	1,22,714	-462.57	26.31	—
2	ADITYA BIRLA FASHION & RETAIL LTD.	7,132	-121.16	4.20	—
3	MSP STEEL & POWER LTD.	2,012	-1.89	1.57	—
4	INDIA CEMENTS LTD., THE	11,711	-263.71	1.52	—
5	MUKAND LTD.	1,873	-64.63	1.40	—
6	PRISM JOHNSON LTD.	6,238	-40.38	1.16	—
7	PVR INOX LTD.	9,250	-292.39	1.01	—
8	SOLARA ACTIVE PHARMA SCIENCES LTD.	2,319	-208.07	0.65	—
9	STEEL EXCHANGE INDIA LTD.	1,098	-4.19	0.60	—
10	ZUARI INDUSTRIES LTD.	737	-4.46	0.51	—

Overall spends made by such companies viz. companies which either reported a loss or did not generate enough profit and thus were not obligated to spend on CSR were as follows:

No. of Companies	47	59	74	65	63	51	57	59	66	49	33
CSR Expenditure (₹ crore)#	78	170	142	118	139	190	155	178	174	185	102

On the other hand, there were 315 companies which missed the mandatory spending of two per cent of net profit (258 in 2023-24). This was primarily due to companies undertaking multi year projects and thus transferring the unspent amount to their ‘Unspent CSR Account’ for utilisation in the next three financial years. In case the amount remains unspent even after the end of the three financial years, it needs to be transferred to any fund specified under the CSR Act such as PM National Relief fund, PM CARES fund etc.

PSU spending saw an increase of 19 per cent from previous year. 71 PSUs spent Rs. 4,791 crore in 2024-25, up from Rs. 3,717 crore spent by 67 PSUs in 2023-24.

The CSR Act also mandates companies to appoint a CSR committee comprising at least three members of the board of which at least one should be independent, in case the CSR spend is more than Rs. 50 lakh. While 1,162 companies spent more than Rs. 50 lakh, 1,102 companies had such a CSR committee in place. Several companies also went beyond the requirement of having 3 members with as many as 520 companies appointing more than 3 members.

Impact Assessment

As per revised provisions of the Companies Act, companies which have an average CSR spend of more than Rs. 10 crore in the last three financial years need to mandatorily carry out impact assessment by an independent agency of such projects where the outlay is more than Rs. 1 crore and which have completed a one year period. The top 10 companies in terms of amount spent on Impact Assessment were as follows:

Rank	Company	Mkt. Cap. as on 31st March 2025 (₹ crore)	Actual CSR Expenditure (₹ crore)#	Amount spent on Impact Assessment (₹ crore)
1	HDFC BANK LTD.	12,27,929	1,068.03	7.82
2	ITC LTD.	3,79,627	461.50	3.62
3	HINDUSTAN UNILEVER LTD.	5,01,215	254.02	2.49
4	HCL TECHNOLOGIES LTD.	3,97,525	281.34	1.22
5	KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK LTD.	73,975	241.20	1.21
6	OIL & NATURAL GAS CORP. LTD.	3,63,067	929.08	1.10
7	LIC HOUSING FINANCE LTD.	29,280	30.28	0.99
8	INFOSYS LTD.	5,39,920	526.26	0.84
9	EICHER MOTORS LTD.	1,96,055	50.25	0.73
10	GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCTS LTD.	1,08,807	38.56	0.60

Ministry of Corporate Affairs, vide notification dated 20th September 2022, amended the format in which companies have to disclose details of their CSR spends in their Annual Reports. As per the notification, companies are no longer required to disclose details (sector, location etc.) of CSR projects undertaken by them. Despite that, 531 companies of the above mentioned 1549 companies voluntarily made this disclosure.

Following sections of this report are based on this limited data pertaining to 531 companies.

Schedule-wise Spends

The spends as per the 12 prescribed schedules are given in the table below. Apart from this, few companies also made spends towards community development/ infrastructure/ social welfare/ child welfare and towards other activities. Details of such spends have been given at the bottom of the table.

Schedule VII	No. of Cos.	Amount Spent (₹ crore)	%age of Total
I – HUNGER, POVERTY AND HEALTHCARE	415	839.80	27.56
II – EDUCATION AND VOCATION SKILLS	464	1,137.14	37.32
III – REDUCING INEQUALITIES	163	71.60	2.35
IV – ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY	267	159.99	5.25
V – NATIONAL HERITAGE	81	36.07	1.18
VI – ARMED FORCE VETERANS	29	22.98	0.75
VII – SPORTS	101	72.32	2.37
VIII – PM’S RELIEF FUND	19	31.84	1.05
IX – TECHNOLOGY INCUBATORS	24	30.73	1.01
X – RURAL DEVELOPMENT	133	122.25	4.01
XI – SLUM DEVELOPMENT	12	4.09	0.13
XII – DISASTER MANAGEMENT (INTRODUCED W.E.F. 30TH MAY 2019)	41	24.47	0.80
TOTAL	—	2,553.27	83.81
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT/INFRASTRUCTURE/SOCIAL WELFARE/CHILD WELFARE	36	30.02	0.99
OTHERS	6	1.25	0.04
ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES	367	419.56	13.77
IMPACT ASSESSMENT COST	152	42.58	1.40

In line with the previous years, Education received the maximum spend (Rs. 1,137 crore) followed by Healthcare (Rs. 840 crore). On the other hand, areas such as slum development, armed force veterans and disaster management saw lower and negligible spends.

In comparison to previous year (only considering data of 433 companies for which project details were available for both years), contribution to PM’s relief fund increased the most (4 per cent) followed by spends on rural development (3 per cent) as shown in table below.

On the other hand, contribution to healthcare fell the most (6 per cent) followed by spends on education (4 per cent). Allocation to schedules, though, remained fairly constant over the previous year.

Schedule VII	2023-24 No. of Cos.	2023-24 Amount Spent (₹ crore)	2023-24 % of Total	2024-25 No. of Cos.	2024-25 Amount Spent (₹ crore)	2024-25 % of Total	Increase (₹ crore)	Increase %
VIII – PM’S RELIEF FUND	18	31.75	1.30	16	121.93	5.76	90.18	4.46
X – RURAL DEVELOPMENT	123	119.93	4.92	106	172.15	8.14	52.22	3.22
VII – SPORTS	88	69.88	2.87	88	83.15	3.93	13.27	1.06
III – REDUCING INEQUALITIES	140	66.73	2.74	149	75.96	3.59	9.23	0.85
IV – ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY	240	148.94	6.11	199	143.30	6.77	-5.63	0.66
IX – TECHNOLOGY INCUBATORS	18	15.28	0.63	15	15.27	0.72	-0.01	0.09
V – NATIONAL HERITAGE	67	32.16	1.32	55	26.63	1.26	-5.52	-0.06
XI – SLUM DEVELOPMENT	11	4.00	0.16	7	1.64	0.08	-2.35	-0.09
VI – ARMED FORCE VETERANS	25	22.76	0.93	20	15.95	0.75	-6.81	-0.18
XII – DISASTER MANAGEMENT	34	23.95	0.98	33	9.42	0.45	-14.53	-0.54
II – EDUCATION AND VOCATION SKILLS	383	1087.09	44.59	380	861.99	40.74	-225.10	-3.84
I – HUNGER, POVERTY AND HEALTHCARE	354	743.10	30.48	344	527.50	24.93	-215.60	-5.54
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT / INFRASTRUCTURE / SOCIAL WELFARE / CHILD WELFARE	31	28.65	1.18	36	26.05	1.23	-2.60	0.06
OTHERS	6	1.25	0.05	5	0.14	0.01	-1.11	-0.04
ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES	72	38.65	1.59	72	31.50	1.49	-7.15	-0.10
IMPACT ASSESSMENT COST	23	4.13	0.17	22	3.13	0.15	-1.00	-0.02

Covid & PM CARES

2022-23 was the first full Covid-free financial year. Thus, as expected, amount spent on Covid related relief activities went down sharply to just Rs. 96 crore in 2022-23, Rs. 4 crore in 2023-24 and just Rs. 1 crore in 2024-25.

Financial Year	Covid related Amount Spent (₹ crore)
2024-25	1
2023-24	4
2022-23	96
2021-22	3,108
2020-21	4,396
2019-20	1,877
TOTAL	9,482

Of this Rs. 9,482 crore, Rs. 4,954 crore (or 52 per cent) were contributions to PM CARES Fund for Covid relief (In total, Rs. 5,348 crore has been contributed to the PM CARES Fund).

State-wise Spends

The top 10 states which received maximum CSR spends were as follows:

Rank	State	No. of Cos.	Amount Received (₹ crore)	%age of Total
1	MAHARASHTRA	289	279.79	10.83
2	GUJARAT	237	243.32	9.41
3	TAMIL NADU	180	237.83	9.20
4	UTTAR PRADESH	167	131.13	5.07
5	HARYANA	154	117.05	4.53
6	TELANGANA	165	112.74	4.36
7	ODISHA	137	109.96	4.25
8	KARNATAKA	193	105.47	4.08
9	CHHATTISGARH	122	101.09	3.91
10	ANDHRA PRADESH	156	99.58	3.85

The top 10 states accounted for 60 per cent of the total CSR spend.

The top 10 states in terms of increase in amounts received from last year (only considering data of 433 companies for which project details were available for both years) were as follows:

Rank	State	2023-24 No. of Cos.	2023-24 Amount Received (₹ crore)	2024-25 No. of Cos.	2024-25 Amount Received (₹ crore)	Increase (₹ crore)
1	GUJARAT	191	151.82	195	228.23	76.40
2	HARYANA	135	61.82	134	114.52	52.70
3	TAMIL NADU	152	169.05	155	214.38	45.32
4	ANDHRA PRADESH	137	51.31	132	94.50	43.19
5	MAHARASHTRA	231	222.21	239	258.08	35.87
6	UTTAR PRADESH	152	94.56	144	127.33	32.77
7	RAJASTHAN	141	68.44	146	83.13	14.69
8	PUNJAB	115	39.07	114	51.77	12.70
9	MADHYA PRADESH	126	52.22	122	64.79	12.57
10	KARNATAKA	164	85.79	160	96.97	11.18

The top 10 states in terms of decrease in amounts received in comparison to previous year were as follows:

Rank	State	2023-24 No. of Cos.	2023-24 Amount Received (₹ crore)	2024-25 No. of Cos.	2024-25 Amount Received (₹ crore)	Decrease (₹ crore)
1	KERALA	103	92.19	100	83.27	-8.92
2	BIHAR	109	46.90	101	38.00	-8.90
3	JHARKHAND	106	92.74	108	84.41	-8.33
4	ODISHA	115	115.17	115	107.20	-7.97
5	DELHI	165	93.35	157	85.62	-7.73
6	CHHATTISGARH	105	104.11	103	98.32	-5.79
7	NAGALAND	93	20.98	91	17.70	-3.28
8	MIZORAM	93	18.29	88	15.93	-2.36
9	LAKSHADWEEP	94	17.62	88	15.93	-1.69
10	GOA	99	24.92	—	—	—

Direct Spends vs using Implementing Agencies

26 per cent of the companies (139 companies) spent only directly on CSR-related activities, 35 per cent used an external Implementing Agency while 37 per cent used a combination of the two. The balance 2 per cent did not specify the route chosen by them. However, in terms of amount spent, the maximum amount was spent directly (Rs. 1,211 crore or 47 per cent of the total Rs. 2,585 crore for which project details are available).

Mode	No. of Cos.	%age of Cos.	Amount Spent (₹ crore)	%age of Amount Spent
DIRECT	139	26.18	1,210.91	46.85
IMPLEMENTING AGENCY	186	35.03	948.73	36.71
BOTH	197	37.10	278.30	10.77
NOT SPECIFIED	9	1.69	146.60	5.67
TOTAL	531	100.00	2,584.54	100.00

Notes:

1. For the same activity, there could be an overlap between the different schedules. For e.g., skill development for women can be classified under employment enhancing vocational skills (Schedule VII (ii)) as well as under promoting gender equality (Schedule VII (iii)).
2. Amount spent in multiple states has been equally divided between the states given. If a state/location has not been provided in the disclosure, then the amount has been equally divided amongst all states in India.
3. For standardizing the data across different financial years/accounting periods of companies, figures for years other than an ‘April-March’ Financial Year have been adjusted on a pro-rata basis till 2019/2019-20. For e.g. data for calendar year 2019 (viz. January-December 2019) has been taken 3 months into 2018-19 and 9 months into 2019-20. From 2020/2020-21 onwards, data for a calendar year is shown under the subsequent financial year. For e.g. data of companies having calendar 2020 (viz. January-December 2020) is shown under FY 2020-21.
4. Schedule-wise amounts spent have been prorated equally for companies where break up between Direct and Implementing Agency has not been given in the Annual Report.
5. Where amount spent does not fall under any of the prescribed schedules or no details of activity have been provided, the amount has been equally split across all schedules.
6. Where schedule-wise spends have not been provided, the total amount has been equally divided across all schedules.