India Inc.'s corporate social responsibility (CSR) spends reportedly increased by 5% from Rs 148.16 billion in FY22 to Rs 155.24 billion in FY23 across 1,296 NSE-listed companies. It was highlighted that HDFC Bank (Rs 8.20 billion), Tata Consultancy Services (Rs 7.83 billion), and Reliance Industries (Rs 7.44 billion) were the top contributors in this regard.
It was noted that ten companies, including the aforementioned three, collectively contributed to 33% of the total CSR expenditure in FY23, as per data exclusively shared with ET by primeinfobase.com, an initiative of Prime Database Group. Other notable companies among the top 10 in terms of CSR expenditure were Tata Steel (Rs 4.80 billion), Oil and Natural Gas Corp (Rs 4.75 billion), ICICI Bank (Rs 4.62 billion), Infosys (Rs 3.91 billion), ITC (Rs 3.65 billion), Power Grid Corporation of India (Rs 3.21 billion), and NTPC (Rs 3.15 billion).
The CSR law, which had been in effect since April 2014, mandated that companies meeting specific financial criteria had to allocate 2% of their average net profit of the last three years to CSR projects. The average net profit of the 1,296 companies over the last three years was reported to be Rs 8.14 trillion, up from Rs 7.20 trillion in FY22. It was further detailed that as per CSR requirements, these companies were required to spend Rs 157.13 billion, compared to which they allocated a slightly lesser amount of Rs 155.24 billion. This discrepancy was attributed to the increase in the amount that remained unspent and was transferred by companies to the Unspent CSR Account, amounting to Rs 16.43 billion, for future use.
There was a notable decline of 17% in the spending by public sector units (PSUs) from FY22. Reportedly, 56 PSUs collectively spent Rs 31.36 billion in FY23, down from Rs 37.66 billion spent by 59 PSUs in FY22.
Consistent with previous years, education received the highest allocation (Rs 12.11 billion), followed by healthcare (Rs 8.25 billion). A comparison with the previous year's data of 536 companies, for which project details were available for both years, revealed that spending on environmental sustainability witnessed the most significant increase (76%), followed by education (41%) and rural development (26%).
