'Firms turn socially responsible with 41% rise in CSR spends'

Companies in India are turning socially responsible with the cumulative CSR spending by the 100 firms under review increasing to Rs 7,215.9 crore in the current financial year, up 41 per cent in the past three years, says a survey.
Consulting firm KPMG in its survey pointed out that over 22 companies have committed a higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) budget outlay in financial year 2017-18, compared with 10 in 2014-15.
The number of companies that have spent less than the prescribed 2-per cent CSR budget has also substantially come down by 29 per cent.
However, 58 companies spent 2 per cent or more, against only 32 companies during 2014-15.

According to KPMG, only 36 companies have disclosed direct and overhead expenditure towards CSR projects in the period under review.
It also noted that 2 out of a 100 companies still do not have a CSR policy in the public domain, and have failed to make it available for a third year in a row.

The consultancy further indicated that three companies still did not disclose an area of intervention in their CSR, and over 30 per cent of the surveyed companies did not disclose details regarding treatment of surplus arising from CSR programmes and projects, which the report highlights as "a concern".

However, a redeeming factor, according to the report, is that 92 companies have disclosed details regarding CSR governance structure in the CSR policy, compared with 75 during 2014-15.
Further, 94 companies have disclosed details regarding vision, mission and philosophy behind their CSR initiatives.
Among the states, while Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Odisha have the highest number of CSR projects at 629, Manipur, Tripura, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli continue to receive least attention with less than 10 projects.