Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Corporate Affairs

15-March-2016 18:03 IST

Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013, mandates every company above the specified thresholds of turnover, or net worth, or net profit to spend at least two per cent of the average net profits earned during three immediately preceding financial years, on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The Ministry of Corporate Affairs is responsible for administrating the Companies Act, and ensuring compliance of these provisions by companies. An assessment of CSR expenditure of 460 listed companies, which have hosted CSR data on their websites, indicates that 51 PSUs and 409 private sector companies together spent about ₹ 6337 crores on CSR during 2014-15.

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

*****

DSM/KA

Corporate Social Responsibility requirement mandates eligible companies to allocate minimum spending on CSR; Ministry oversees compliance and reporting. Section 135 establishes a statutory Corporate Social Responsibility regime requiring companies exceeding specified financial thresholds to devote a mandated portion of average net profits from the preceding three financial years to CSR; the Ministry of Corporate Affairs administers and oversees compliance and reporting, and disclosed company data show aggregated CSR expenditure for the referenced year.