Tamil Nadu, the second-largest economy in the country, has received over Rs 4,000 crore of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds between 2014 and 2021 with Chennai and Coimbatore getting the lion’s share, while the interior and rural districts have been largely ignored.
Of the CSR spending in the last seven years, 39 per cent of the funds have gone towards educations followed by health (20 per cent), and rural development (8 per cent). While Chennai, the state capital, and Coimbatore, the industrial city, received one-third of the CSR funds, Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram, designated as aspirational districts by the Union Government, got just one per cent of the funds.
A report prepared by Sattva Consulting said Tamil Nadu received over Rs 800 crores of CSR funding in each of the last two financial years – 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 — accounting for 42% of the total CSR funds received over the six years.
It was released recently by Finance Minister P T R Palanivel Thiaga Rajan. The top spenders from their CSR funds are companies that are based out of Tamil Nadu like the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC), MRF, Sun TV Network, and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL).
Chennai received the bulk of CSR outlays at close to 25 per cent, with Vellore and Coimbatore at little over 6 per cent and 5 per cent, the report said, adding that the aspirational districts which are yet to meet many of the markers as per the Sustainable Development Goals received less than one per cent outlay across the last six years. The report also found Ariyalur, Tenkasi, and Tiruppattur received no CSR funds.
Tenkasi and Tiruppattur were carved out of Tirunelveli and Vellore districts respectively in 2019. It also said 18 per cent of the total CSR spending was contributed by the top five funding companies, while 45 per cent of the implementation is directly done by companies. While 61 per cent of the CSR spend by companies headquartered in Tamil Nadu is spent in the state, 19 per cent of the funds from the above-mentioned category is spent by the BFSI industry.
“As we chart a course to build back better after this pandemic, we need to build in strong principles of sustainability and collaboration in all our re-build efforts. The emergence of multi-faceted partnerships, a strategic outlook towards CSR, solving for scale in line with the development needs of the state will be the hallmark of CSR work in Tamil Nadu in the post-pandemic period,” said Srikrishna Sridhar Murthy, co-founder and CEO of Sattva.
Tamil Nadu is the fourth-highest recipient state of CSR funds in India and the corporate sector is emerging as an important player in the state’s development, the report said.
