TC Web Desk
The COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly difficult on the corporates of the country. Their operations were stagnated for a large part of the financial year 2020-21. Despite this, the companies have taken up their responsibility towards society and spent significant amounts for community welfare. Following are the companies that spent over ₹ 100 crores on CSR in the last financial year (FY2020-21).
ITC Ltd has spent ₹ 353.46 cr on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) during FY 2020-21. Of this, a total of Rs. 182 crores were spent by ITC and its Trusts on COVID-19 related relief and assistance. Cash contributions were made to the PM CARES Fund and to 17 state governments and various NGOs engaged in direct relief work with migrant workers. The company also distributed dry rations, cooked food and personal hygiene products in 25 states.
Vedanta Group, India’s leading producer of metals, minerals and oil & gas spent ₹ 331 crores on social impact. The company’s CSR initiatives have benefitted about 42 million individuals across the country. Additionally, it has managed to conserve 1.89 million GJ of energy and achieved a 30.7 per cent of water recycling rate in its operations. Vedanta has recently announced the Anil Agarwal Foundation initiative of Swasth Gaon Abhiyan and has created a roadmap to spend ₹ 5,000 crore over the next five years to provide end-to-end healthcare to communities across 24 districts in 12 states. Through its flagship initiative, 2,400 Nand Ghars across 11 states aims to touch the lives of 7 crore children and 2 crore women.
Infosys Limited, an early adopter of CSR initiatives, spent ₹ 325.32 crores on various projects and transferred ₹ 49.52 crore to the Unspent Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Account. Gross amount required to be spent by the Company during the year is ₹ 372 crores. The company allocated ₹ 50 crores for Infosys Headstart, a digital literacy initiative, and spent ₹ 0.48 crore in fiscal 2021 towards this initiative.
Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has spent ₹ 165 crores with a major focus on COVID relief projects and long-term Women Empowerment projects. The company’s CSR spent also increased by close to 15 per cent as compared to its CSR expenditure last year. The company spent more than Rs 61 Cr on COVID relief work. Further, the company also continued its long-term CSR projects like Project Shakti which is focused on empowering women through creating livelihood opportunities for them.
SBI Bank has spent over ₹ 144 crores with focus areas of activities include healthcare, education, livelihood, sports, the welfare of armed forces veterans, skill development, environmental sustainability, protection of National Heritage, empowerment of women, youth and senior citizens.
The Kotak Mahindra Bank spent ₹ 142.99 crores contributing to the economic, environmental and social well-being of communities. The Bank implements its CSR programmes on Education and Livelihood through Kotak Education Foundation (KEF). The foundation supports children & youth from underprivileged families. It reached out to over 1.05 lakh students in FY 2019-20 and also empowered nearly 2,700 youth, including about 1,900 women, through livelihood training.
Maruti Suzuki spent over ₹ 140 crores with a focus on COVID-19 relief, community development, skill development and road safety. Key highlights included setting up of multi-speciality hospital and school in Gujarat. The hospital with 50 beds and the primary wing of the school has been made operational in April 2021. The hospital and the school were established in partnership with Zydus Hospitals, Ahmedabad and the Poddar Education Network, respectively.
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M Ltd.) invested ₹ 112 crores with a contribution of ₹ 20 crores to PMCARES to contribute to the nation’s fight against COVID-19. The company’s flagship Project ‘Nanhi Kali’ supported the education of over 1,71,950 underprivileged girls through 6,346 academic support centres across 24 locations in 9 states. Of these 33,046 girls were supported by M&M Ltd., while the Mahindra Group as a whole, supported 73,699 girls.
Bajaj Finance Limited exceeded its prescribed CSR budget of ₹ 106.55 crores by spending a total of ₹ 107.07 crores. This course, CPBFI (a customised certificate programme in banking, finance, and insurance) not only increases the employability of the trained youth but also creates a local talent pool for the BFSI sector in Tier 2 and 3 cities.
Piramal Enterprises’ Piramal Foundation, launched initiatives to address the devastating impact of the second wave of COVID in India’s aspirational districts. To address the emergency, the Foundation has committed to set up 100 covid care centres in rural and tribal blocks across 25 aspirational districts, and Home Care Support to the tribal and rural population in 112 aspirational in partnership with NITI Aayog. The intervention seeks to reach 2 million people in 1143 blocks through a network of 1000 NGOs and over 1 lakh volunteers. In Maharashtra alone, it aims to reach 1.25 lakh people in 32 blocks of 4 Aspirational Districts of Gadchiroli, Nandurbar, Osmanabad and Washim.
