MUMBAI: It has reported that State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and leading business such as – IT giants Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, lenders ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and HDFC, and telecom major Bharti Airtel are among top that have not spent 2% of their profits on social welfare activities under CSR law.
Leading Media DNA Money said in its recent report that among top-100 companies which have spent less than half of the funds earmarked for CSR during financial year (FY) 2015-16 are Bharti Airtel (22%), Idea (33%), Hindustan Zinc (37%), BHEL (41.8%) and Cairn India (48%).
The zero spenders during this period include – Essar Steel, Alok Industries, Micromax and DLF Commercial Developers.
It said that about Rs 13,828 crore was spent by over 19,000 companies during FY16. In the subsequent year, only Rs 4,719 crore was spent by 6,286 companies. Over 9,200 eligible companies did not spend a single penny on CSR during FY16 as compared to 346 firms in FY17.
DNA Money referred a quote of a senior official from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) who said, The government has “issued scrutiny letters to about top 1,000 companies for non-compliance of the CSR law during FY16. Next step is to send show-cause notices before court cases are filed against violators.
This is part of the first-ever strict compliance of the CSR law, four years after it was implemented in April 2014. There are 3,380 companies which spent less than the prescribed limit during 2015-16, while 1,633 firms spent more than the prescribed limit.
“The government will soon start taking action against the CSR violations committed in FY17 also,” sources said.
So far, the companies have provided financial statement and CSR figures till 2016-17 only.
“If the companies are found to be in violation of the provisions of the CSR law, they will have to face court prosecutions,” said a senior government official, adding that the ministry has decided to make the compliance of the law strict, as a large number of companies were found to have not spent enough on social welfare as expected.
So far, “the soft approach adopted by the government to encourage companies to carry out social welfare activities allowed the companies to get away with even less CSR expenditure. In the first year (2014-15) of implementation of CSR law, the government approved action against only those companies which failed to disclose in their annual report reasons for not spending on the CSR. But the ministry plans to now refer all the cases of non-compliance to the court and let it decide on it,” said another official.
However, sources point out that the government may seek legal opinion before filing prosecutions as one of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) issued by it earlier said, “Board can decide whether any unspent amount from out of the minimum required CSR expenditure is to be carried forward to the next year.”
In the cases of CSR violations during 2015-18, the government is also mulling asking companies to deposit the unspent money in the government fund, sources said. However, for future purpose, merely giving an explanation for not undertaking expenditure on CSR would no longer qualify as compliance of the law, sources added.
The companies can spend CSR funds in about 10 areas that include poverty eradication, preventive healthcare, sanitation, safe drinking water, education, gender equality, environmental sustainability and protection of national heritage.
As per as per the provisions (section 135) of the Companies Act, all the firms having net worth of Rs 500 crore or more, or a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore or more, or a net profit of Rs 5 crore or more have to spend 2% of their profit on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) every financial year.
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