Budget 2022-23: CII seeks additional 1% CSR for Covid-19 boosters

With occupancy rate in hospitals remaining with­in manageable levels during the ongoing third wave of the pandemic, industry lobby group Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has urged state governments to lift restrictions on economic activities.

It has written to chief ministers to consider curbs at micro-containment zones only when hospitalisation rates are over 75 per cent and normal economic activities should continue until this level is breached in a micro zone. Apart from that, social activities, particularly mass gatherings for any social, sports, entertainment, recreation, among others, should be restricted to curtail spread of the Omicron variant.

“Hospitalization rates in the present wave stand at manageable levels and therefore, industry feels that Covid-related restrictions can be removed to enable the robust recovery process to continue… It is possible to maintain normal economic activities and protect lives and livelihoods,” said T V Narendran, president, CII.

One of the key recommendations is to use a combination of vaccination rate, hospitalisation incidence and sero-prevalence, if available, to determine the level of restrictions in the micro-containment zones. “Even in micro containment zones, all factories may be allowed to function under certain conditions of hygiene and safety. There should be no distinction between essential and non-essential goods and services. However, crowd control is essential to enable social distancing,” CII said.

Covid-19 cases have been rising rapidly since the beginning of the month and India reported 3.33 lakh new cases in the past 24 hours, according to health ministry data as on January 23. Several states and Union Territories have imposed curfews and restrictions on some economic activities to curb the spread.

The industry lobby group also said the Budget expected to focus on ways to strengthen economic recovery. It urged the government to encourage industry to deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding for providing precautionary shots to the community. Further, industry is ready to contribute an additional 1 per cent under the CSR norms to the national vaccination mission, apart from the mandated 2 per cent which can be part of the Budget for the next one year, so that boosters can be made available to all age-groups.

“If companies spend on vaccines for their employees, their families and members of the community, then that expense can be set off against this additional CSR spend. Besides, the government provided boosters, the market mechanism should also be made to work for people, who can afford to pay for their booster shots,” Narendran said, adding that there is a need to fast-track imports of all international-approved mRNA and protein-based vaccines at a price to be determined by the government.

Narendran also said investments under National Infrastructure Pipeline and Gati Shakti programme must be fast-tracked and it was expected that the Budget will provide for this. “These activities will be dampened if curbs on economic activity were to continue,” he said.

“With bounceback in demand, the economy is expected to achieve a 9.2 per cent growth rate over 2021-22. However, this pace must continue for full recovery and faster growth in the medium term and to ensure that workers and small enterprises do not suffer. While vaccinations have helped in dampening the impact of Omicron on the lives of people, the present conditions are conducive to opening up the economy completely while keeping large social gatherings to a minimum,” Narendran said.