India CSR Network
KOCHI: It has reported that with the corporate affairs ministry making it mandatory for companies to invest 2% in corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects, companies will have to invest in good projects rather than make a casual spending, said Bhaskar Chatterjee, director general and CEO of Indian institute of corporate affairs (IICA).
Chatterjee was speaking at the plenary session of a three-day conference, organized by HLL Lifecare Ltd along with IICA and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).
According to him, the section 135 of Companies Act 2013 ushers in a new regulatory stance towards CSR in India with about 16,000 companies in India now required to comply with its mandatory provisions. “This can translate into a total annual CSR spend of approximately Rs 20,000 crore,” he said.
“The new law has become mandatory for companies to have three members of their director board be responsible for the CSR project. One of the directors should be an independent member,” he added.
Earlier, participating in an interaction with people from the industry, National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) mission director Anuradha Gupta said the health ministry wants private sector players to come out of ‘their comfort zones’ to take healthcare programmes to the unreachable through effective public-private partnerships (PPP). “Even for the urban rural areas, the private sector is not coming forward. The government is at the same time enabler and the provider,” she said.
S K Sikdar, deputy commissioner of family planning in the health ministry said the free distribution of contraceptives at the doorsteps has covered 6.4 lakh villages in the country. Citing a survey, he said 95% of women beneficiaries were satisfied with this distribution.
