Companies CSR expenditure rises 47% in 4 years to FY18, says survey

Companies in India spent Rs 75.36 billion on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in 2017-18, a 47 per cent rise compared to 201415, says a survey.

"This is a significant rise, clearly demonstrating higher expenditure towards CSR activities from the mandated year, 2014," said the KPMG India CSR Reporting Survey 2018.

The cumulative expenditure by top 100 companies from 201415 to 201718 is about Rs 263.85 billion, the survey said.

The average amount spent per company has gone up to Rs 761 million as compared to Rs 588 million during 201415, up 29 per cent, it said.

The survey further said that the total unspent amount has reduced by Rs 7.49 billion to Rs 9.89 billion during 2017-18 from Rs 17.38 billion in 201415.

"This is the fourth year into the report and also government regulation to spend 2 per cent on CSR. This year, the two outcomes which are showing progress due to the regulation are - governance around CSR and contribution of private sector in the development," said Santhosh Jayaram, Partner and Head, Sustainability and CSR Advisory, KPMG in India.

"The governance around CSR has improved to a great extent. The functioning of the CSR committee has shown significant development as increasing number of top executives are involved and CSR is also a board room discussion. The CSR spend is increasing over years and more private companies are crossing the 2 per cent threshold," he added.

Energy and power sectors have spent the highest amount towards CSR at Rs 24.64 billion followed by BFSI at Rs 13.52 billion, customer products at Rs 6.35 billion, IT consulting and software at Rs 11 billion and mining and metal at Rs 6.47 billion.

The number of companies that have spent less than 2 per cent has also substantially come down by 37 per cent to 33 companies in 2017-18 from 52 in 2014-15.

State-wise, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are the top five states from an expenditure perspective, the survey added.