Corporates now open to public gaze: Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that online availability of data will force corporate entities to ensure compliance and be transparent as their activities will now be open to public gaze.

Jaitley also warned the corporates that because of this transparency, the possibility of any impropriety being detected "is going to be very high".

"Being open to public gaze has its own advantages. It has the advantage that there is a pressure on everyone to make sure that compliances do take place.

"...That everyone is on his feet in order to realise that if there is any impropriety, the possibility of it being detected is going to be very high," Jaitley said at the launch of the National CSR Data Portal and Corporate Data Portal.

Jaitley said this transparency was "good for the system and for corporate India".

"It's good that your details to the extent that they are to be made public, are being made public."

He said unlike in the West, philanthropy in India was more family and community centric with religious groups, caste groups and social groups engaged in it.

"Corporate India didn't have a structured manner of doing it. Some did it on their own initiative. Now that the provisions have been incorporated, (they) persuade corporate India to move in that direction.

"I think there has been a fairly credible and positive response to it," he said.

--IANS

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