Recommendatory Report based on a study on Emerging

Trends of CSR in India

Prabhat Chalmeti1

Varun Kumar Kadambala2

1Summer Intern, Helpage India, Cochin 2Summer Intern, Helpage India, Cochin

Abstract: The idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been through a lot changes

and reached to what it is today. This report aims to explain the highlights of our research

paper “Corporate Social Responsibility: Emerging Trends in India – A Descriptive Study”

and explain some major problems of CSR and Companies Act, 2013. This report has not

only presented some excellent ideas of fund raising, but also gave in some new initiatives

Helpage India can work on in the coming future.

I. Introduction

As a part of our project, we worked on a research paper titled “Corporate Social

Responsibility: Emerging Trends in India – A Descriptive Study”. While working

on the project we referred so many other research journals and online content. We

went through a lot of material studying about how the definition of CSR has changed

in years and how it reached its current meaning. How the opinions of companies

varied on the concept of CSR and how companies carried out their initiatives. We

also came to know different kinds of initiatives taken up by different corporations as

part of their CSR campaign and what role NGOs played in these initiatives. This

recommendatory report is based on the knowledge we gained we through this study.

The report will help Helpage India not only understand the present scenario of CSR

in the Indian market, but also come up with new initiatives to serve for the cause. In

the end we also mentioned a few ideas we came up as we worked on this paper.

These ideas will help Helpage India in fundraising programs and also implement

new initiatives in future.

II. Findings of our study

In the 1950s the primary focus was on businesses' responsibilities to society and

doing good deeds for society. In the 1960s key events, people and ideas were

instrumental in characterizing the social changes ushered in during this decade. In

the 1970s business managers applied the traditional management functions when

dealing with CSR issues, while, in the 1980s, business and social interest came closer

and firms became more responsive to their stakeholders. During the 1990s the idea

of CSR became almost universally approved, also CSR was coupled with strategy

literature and finally, in the 2000s, CSR became definitively an important strategic

issue.

III. Few Noted Helpage CSR activities from the news

As a part of this study, we went through a lot of online material studying recent CSR

activities of various organizations. The below mentioned are a few of those actively

involving Helpage India.

1. Legal and General, a UK based company donated Rs.23 Lakhs to Helpage

India for mobile medical units.

2. National Small Industries Corporation Ltd., joined hands with Helpage India

as part of CSR activity for the F.Y 2013-14. As a part of the deal, the

Corporation agreed that the cost of running MMUs will be funded by NSIC

for one year.

3. Tangerine, a designer brand for home solutions, has got on board a string of

Bollywood celebrities to autograph on its bedroom makeover accessories as a

corporate-social-responsibility initiative. For every one celebrity signature,

the brand donated twenty five bed sheets to non- governmental organizations

like Help Age India and Silver Inning Foundation.

4. Snapdeal, an e-commerce company in India started the “Snapdeal Sunshine”

program as part of which the customers allowed to donate products of the site

to various NGOs. Helpage India was a part of this collaboration.

5. Students of Kids Planet School, Akhnoor, Jammu raised a fund amounting to

Rs.84, 000 for Helpage India in May this year.

6. MV International School, Jammu handed a collection cheque of Rs.76, 379 to

Helpage India in February this year.

7. Students of Humanity Public School have raised a fund of Rs.65, 000 for

Helpage India in October last year.

8. Students of RS Jagriti Niketan School raised a fund of Rs.60, 000 for Helpage

India in November last year.

IV. Problems of CSR

Thought the practice of CSR gas grown by leaps and bounds in the recent years,

there have always been some major issues with this tradition. Some of the issues we

realized as we worked on our project are mentioned below.

The concept of corporate social responsibility is based on the basic principle

of no harm – “If you can do no good, cause no harm”, as mentioned by Mr.

TK Arun at an event organized by Economic Times.

Social responsibility works better as a person centric idea, because of the

involvement of feelings and emotions. But CSR being a company-centric-idea

resulted in initiatives that benefited the companies more than the society.

Many companies offer to give CSR money as a reimbursement to NGOs. Had

the NGOs had the money to carry out their activities, they would have never

approached the corporates. But the companies always fail to realize this fact.

Many companies impose service tax and TDS on NGOs, and also demanding

for 100% tax exemption certificates while most of the NGOs are only capable

of providing with 80G tax benefits. There has always been a chaos of these

concepts.

Companies establish corporate foundations as part of their CSR activity. This

turns out to be just a transfer of funds from one side of the balance sheet to

another most of the cases. The corporates use these foundations as what is

commonly referred to “tax cover”.

Companies providing CSR activities to cover up their bad business practices.

In such cases, these initiatives only act as a Band-Aid to damage the

companies have caused to the society. This calls up to new campaign of

business responsibility before social responsibility.

V. Limitations of the Companies Act

The Companies Act, 2013 doesn’t mention senior citizens as one of the

beneficiaries of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligation of public

and private sector companies

The Act does not prescribe any penal provision if a company fails to spend

the stated amount on CSR activities. The Board will need to explain reasons

for non-compliance in its report.

The threshold limit of Rs.5 crores net profit for applicability of CSR

requirements seems, in comparative terms, to be on the lower side vis-à-vis

net worth and turnover thresholds of Rs.500 crores and Rs.1,000crores

respectively. This may result in companies getting covered under CSR even

when they do not meet net worth/turnover criteria.

It is not absolutely clear whether a company will need to create a provision in

its financial statements for the unspent amount if it fails to spend 2% on CSR

activities in a particular year.

VI. Recommendations

Helpage is one the leading and most active NGOs working for the cause of

upliftment of the elderly. Based on the findings of our research and above stated

content, we would like to make some recommendations on the further initiatives

Helpage India can engage in. These recommendations include ideas other than just

fund raising.

New Movements:

o Helpage India can join hands with other NGOs working in different

areas and start the campaign of ‘Responsible Business.’ Such initiatives

might bring in some better corporate engagements for the organization

and also help reduce the damage caused by some corporations to the

society and environment.

o Helpage India can join hands with different social societies and start a

new protest pressurizing the government to add senior citizens as

beneficiaries to the already existing beneficiaries of CSR according the

section 135 of Companies Act, 2013.

Corporate Associations

o Helpage India can partner with the already existing corporate

foundations and engage them with the already existing Helpage

initiatives and programs.

o Helpage India can approach newly emerging companies to establish

corporate foundation for the cause of the upliftment of the elderly and

partner with them.

o Helpage India can make research studies on existing CSR activities

aimed at elderly care and associate with the concerned companies.

Example, The head of CSR activities of IBM in Asia region gave a

statement last November about their interest in contributing to elderly

care. Helpage India can approach this company for tie-ups. Helpage can

also join hands with the Deloitte’s Well Being Program (WBP), another

initiative aimed at elderly care.

NGO Partnerships

Companies would always prefer to donate for cause that serves benefits to

more sections of the population.

o Helpage India can join hands with other existing NGOs of the same

area and conduct studies on elderly issues. Such programs will increase

the scope of starting new initiatives that have more impact on the cause.

o Helpage India can also join hands with NGOs working in different areas

and conduct studies in areas where the two causes meet each other. This

will help in making initiatives that serve both the causes. Example,

Helpage India can join hands with some child care organization to start

a program through which children at adolescence stages can interact

with the experienced elderly. Such programs will provide will benefit

both the parties.

Associate with schools and colleges

o As we can clearly see from the news, schools have been very important

contributors to the cause. But this trend is observed more in the northern

part of India and very less in south India. Helpage India can spread this

program to south India and raise funds from schools.

o During the admissions season, Helpage India can approach institutions

to add an option of donating nominal amounts to Helpage India in their

fees form. This program will help Helpage raise huge funds and also

spread awareness about the cause.

o Almost every reputed university in India have a student club

contributing to social causes, like BITS Pilani has Nirmaan Club.

Helpage India can partner with such clubs and conduct events at their

college fest to increase awareness and fund raising.

o Helpage India can also accept interns from such universities to conduct

research studies which benefit the organization

Corporate Fund Raising

o Helpage India can partner with a payment portal to add an Rs1/2

donation tab to their portal. This idea can also be extended to other

shopping malls and newly established Uber facilities.

o Similarly, Helpage India can approach a bank to donate to donate INR

1 or 2 for every transaction happening on a particular day like World

Elders day or World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

o Helpage can approach e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart for

partnerships. As part of this program, Helpage India can add a tab on

the website that leads to the e-commerce site. The company can have a

pact to donate certain percentage of profit for every product bought

through this link.

o Helpage India can approach companies to donate their products as a

part of the product-release campaign. For example Helpage can

encourage the company to organize a signature campaign at their

product-launch event provide a certain number of entities for every

signature they receive.

o Huge clothing and footwear companies like Adidas and Reebok etc.

reject their products for simple faults like missing a threads etc.

Generally these products go to the second-hand market. Helpage India

can approach the manufacturing units of such companies and ask them

to donate these rejected products.