CSR's long journey

Senior bureacrat and prime ministerial adviser T K A Nair was the chief guest at an event to release a report by Dun & Bradstreet on the top public sector units (PSUs). The topic of discussion, "Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)", took Nair back some 50 years down memory lane. When Nair joined the services in 1963, many of the public sector units were still being formed. Though the concept of CSR did not exist, these units used to build schools for children of employees and housing for employees. Nair recalled how there used to be criticism then that PSUs were getting into building houses instead of building factories and focusing on manufacturing. "But these steps paid off in the long run." Now, of course, things are different, with a demand for companies to focus on socially-useful activities, and the new companies Bill, waiting to be passed in Rajya Sabha, requires companies to spend two per cent of their profits on CSR activities.