The provision of Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, Schedule VII of the said Act, and the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 have come into force only from 01.04.2014. This is the first year of the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by companies under the Act. Details such as the amount spent and nature of activities undertaken by the companies would be available only after the mandatory disclosures of CSR expenditure are made by companies, which would be due after September, 2015. “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” and “Clean Ganga Mission” have been included as CSR activities under Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 from 24th October, 2014. Details about the contribution made by the companies in this regard would also be available by the time indicated above.

This was stated by Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister of Corporate Affairs in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

Corporate Social Responsibility under the Companies Act permits contributions to Swachh Bharat and Clean Ganga; disclosures follow. The Companies Act CSR regime became operative from 1 April 2014, activating Section 135, Schedule VII and the CSR Rules, 2014; mandatory company disclosures of CSR expenditure and activities will follow after the first year. Schedule VII was amended to include Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Clean Ganga Mission as qualifying CSR activities, and contributions to those missions must be reported in the statutorily required CSR disclosures.