The National CSR Conclave organised by Think Media Inc took place in Delhi last month which aimed at bringing different stakeholders under one roof to discuss the present challenges and issues regarding CSR including the issue of mandatory CSR, its role in shaping business strategies and synchronising the business capital with social capital. CSR Heads of repute organisations and NGOs participated in the Conclave and shared their experiences.
Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Datawind, addressing the conclave ealked about how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an Opportunity and not a responsibility.
Ravi Chaudhry of Cenext Consulting, Charudutt Panigrahi of FIDR, Rajiv Williams of Jindal Stainless Ltd. speaking at The National CSR Conclave, Nigel Phillips of Career Life College, Jane E Schukoske of S.M. Sehgal Foundation and Charudutt Panigrahi of FIDR were some of the speakears at the National CSR Conclave, that took place in Delhi last month.
Prof. LK Vaswani, Director, KIIT University, Vinod Agarwal, VP CSR, BLSP , Deputy Director (Retd) Bureau of Indian Standards, Lt. Gen Ranjender Singh, CEO, DLF Foundation, Commander VK Jaitly, C-cube Consultants Vishwas Tendulkar, Project Director, iWatch, Dr KK Upadhyay, Head CSR, FICCIw were the other speakers.
New much-awaited rules for the new ‘corporate social responsibility’ regime were notified on 27 February, 2014, under which companies with sizable businesses would need to spend minimum 2 per cent of net profit for benefit of society.
The CSR activities will have to be within India, and the new rules will also apply to foreign companies registered here. However, funds given to political parties and the money spent for the benefit of the company’s own employees (and their families) will not count as CSR.
Listing out the permitted CSR activities, the government said that they need to be undertaken as per approval of the company’s board in accordance with its CSR Policy and the decision of its CSR Committee.
The CSR rules will take effect from April 1, as part of the new Companies Act. They will apply to the companies with at least Rs 5 crore net profit, or Rs 1,000 crore turnover or Rs 500 crore net worth.
Such companies will need to spend 2 per cent of their three-year average annual net profit on CSR activities in each financial year, beginning the next fiscal, 2014-15.
For the purpose of deciding the CSR spending eligibility of a company, profit from overseas branches and dividend received from other companies in India will be excluded from the net profit criteria.
Besides, contributions made “directly or indirectly” to any political party have been excluded from CSR ambit.
[Business World]
