Sports promotion to be condidered as CSR activities: Govt

Certain class of profitable entities are required to shell out at least 2% of their three-year annual average net profit towards CSR activities

The government today said social welfare expenditure by companies towards promotion of sports like the rural and national sports would be considered as a CSR activity.

Under the new Companies Act, certain class of profitable entities are required to shell out at least two per cent of their three-year annual average net profit towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.

"Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 that indicates a list of CSR activities includes 'training to promote rural sports, nationally recognised sports, paralympic sports and olympic sports," Minister of State for Corporate Affair Nirmala Sitharaman informed Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

On a query about the amount spent by companies for CSR activities, the Minister noted that the rules for the same have come into force only recently in April and "details about the amount spent by the companies under CSR would be available only after the mandatory disclosures of CSR spend are made by the companies, which would be due withing six months after completion of financial year 2014-15".

To a separate question on whether firms were adopting clandestine modalities to escape CSR, Sitharaman said that "so far no such incident has come to the notice of the government".

Sitharaman said that the companies "are at a preliminary stage of undertaking CSR activities like setting up of CSR Committees and formation of their respective CSR policies by such committees and their approval by the board".