Call this COVID19 pandemic effect. India Inc’s Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) spend for FY 2020-21 fell sharply to ₹8,828.11 crore, much lower than the cumulative spends of ₹20,150.27 crore in FY2018-19 and ₹24,688.66 crore in FY 2019-20, official data submitted to Parliament on Monday showed.

An analysis of CSR filings made by the companies revealed that of the total annual CSR spent, about 60 per cent of the CSR expenditure has been done through implementation agencies, said Rao Inderjeet Singh, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs in a written reply to Lok Sabha question.

In India, the CSR architecture is disclosure based and only CSR mandated companies are required to file details of CSR spent annually in the MCA-21 registry.

In FY 2020-21, as many as 1,619 companies have done CSR spend of ₹8,828.21 crore. Of these, as many as 1,599 are non-PSUs, while 20 are PSUs. Non PSUs spend for CSR in 2020-21 stood at ₹8,266.93 crore, while the 20 PSUs cumulatively spent ₹, 561.18 crore, as per available official data up to September 30 this year.

Interestingly, in previous years of 2019-20 and 2018-19, as many as 22,531 and 25,099 companies respectively spent ₹24,688.66 crore and ₹20,150.27 crore towards CSR.

Under the Act, CSR is a Board driven process and the Board of the company is empowered to plan, decide, execute and monitor CSR activities based on the recommendations of the CSR committee. The government does not issue any specific direction to the companies to spend in any particular activity or area.

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