During the financial year 2019-20, JSW Steel has spent an amount of Rs. 152 crores towards CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility expenditure, which is an increase of over 100% as compared to the previous year. While the implementation of programmes remains closely linked to the local context, the alignment with UN SDGs and dovetailing of best practices is also taken care while implementing CSR programmes, the company’s recent annual report said.
JSW Steel’s vision is to increase its domestic capacity to 45 MnT over the next decade by pursuing both organic and inorganic growth opportunities.
In the last four financial years, JSW Steel has consistently increased the share of CSR expenditure. This is in line with the CSR committee’s vision to build robust CSR capabilities that enable the organisation to create long-term and far-reaching impact.
The Company has been continuously increasing its spend on CSR initiatives every year and has spent an amount of Rs. 43 crores, Rs. 53 crores, and Rs. 63 crores in the financial year 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 respectively. This reflects a year on year increase of 23%, 19%, and 14% respectively. The Company has spent an amount of Rs. 152 crores towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to comply with Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 during the year.
CSR spending for the last 4 years:
| SL. No. | FY | CSR Spent |
| 1. | 2019-20 | Rs. 152 crores |
| 2. | 2018-19 | Rs. 63 crores |
| 3. | 2017-18 | Rs. 53 crores |
| 4. | 2016-17 | Rs. 43 crores |
| Total Rs. | 299 Crores |
JSW Steel’s commitment to nation-building is also reflected in its CSR policy, which is led by the Group’s CSR entity – JSW Foundation.
“The Company is committed to empowering communities and creating sustainable livelihoods. This is achieved through the thought leadership and implementation by JSW Foundation, the organisation entrusted with the mandate of CSR for entire JSW Group.”, report said.
Over the years, the Company has consistently invested in initiatives that help improve living conditions, promote social development, address social inequalities & environmental issues, preserve national heritage, promote sports and support rural development projects.
The overall approach is to provide holistic life cycle based interventions catering to all sections of society, age groups and those requiring extra attention. The strategy is to find the key connect amongst the various CSR thematic thrust areas to attain better complementarity, e.g. water interventions linked to agribusiness and livelihoods initiatives.
A significant part of CSR philosophy is community and employee driven. The Company’s employees are actively invested in providing more technical, financial and emotional support for the programmes in the vicinity of the plants. This ranges from support to the neonatal care unit at Bellary Government Hospital, waste collection drive in the localities, sanitation drives, mangrove plantation, awareness building programmes for local communities and other such activities.
The Company’s CSR interventions have reached out to communities across more than 255 villages in 4 states of India with special focus on:
- Strengthening public health and nutrition with special focus on mothers, children & adolescent girls.
- Comprehensive water management leading not only to sustainable environment but also sustained agri-livelihoods, in turn affecting nutrition and poverty.
- Empowerment of women through JSW Shakti initiatives, i.e. (Rural BPO for women, promoting Self-Help Groups etc.). JSW Shakti is now registered as a Section 8 company to provide scaled up support to rural entrepreneurs, especially women across the country.
- Improving quality education in rural schools through infrastructure, training methodology and
- capacity building initiatives.
- Sanitation and waste management, single use plastic waste in particular.
- Well though environment upgradation programmes such as mangrove restoration etc.
The CSR programmes are monitored by both internal and external experts. As per the CSR policy, progress of the programmes is reviewed periodically by the Board-level CSR Committee, as well as the management at the sites. The Company through its Board and the CSR Committee follows a comprehensive approach to deliver socially inclusive and holistic interventions that help create equitable opportunities for the underprivileged and contribute to nation building.
The core philosophy of the Company’s social intervention programmes is to work closely with communities living near its operations, and beyond. JSW Steel has deployed a strategic inclusive development approach that encompasses preserving and building drinking water resources, constructing better sanitation facilities, conserving environment, providing health and nutrition amenities, providing quality education, creating platforms for skill-building and livelihoods, promoting sports and art, culture and heritage.
As per Section 135 of the Indian Companies Act, 2013, a company, meeting the applicability threshold, needs to spend at least 2% of its average net profit computed as mandated by the Act for the immediately preceding three financial years on CSR activities. The Act prescribes that every company having a net worth of Rs. 500 crore or more, or turnover of Rs. 1,000 crore or more, or a net profit of Rs. 5 crore or more during any financial year shall ensure that it spends, in every financial year, at least 2% of the average net profits computed as mandated by the Act, in pursuance of its CSR Policy.
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