CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) POLICY
PHILOSOPHY
CSR promote the conception of business accountability to a wide range of
stakeholders, besides shareholders and investors. Society has high expectations
from corporate business sector for responsible behavior. There is growing
acknowledgement of the significant impact of the activities of the corporate sector
on society – on employees, customers, shareholders, governments and others. CSR
connects the stakeholders and the human resource policies. It also takes into
account the impact it makes on those inside and outside the enterprise.
GOVERNING LAW
Section 135 (1) of the Companies Act, 2013 (the said Act), read with the
Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 (the said Rules),
requires every company having:
- net worth of Rs,500 crore or more, or
- turnover of Rs.1000 crore or more, or
- net profit of Rs.5 crore or more calculated in accordance with Section 198 of
the Act during any financial year to constitute a CSR Committee of the
Board of Directors.
Further, Section 135 (5) of the said Act mandates that the Board of every company
which falls within the purview of Section 135(1) thereof, shall ensure that every
year the Company spends at least 2% of the average net profit made during the
three immediately preceding financial years.
Schedule VII to the said Act provides a comprehensive list of activities and a
company may adopt one or more of those activities for its CSR policy.
Rule 4 of the said Rules enables a Company to undertake its CSR activities in any
of the following manner:
a) On its own, as projects or programmes or activities, either new or ongoing ,
to the exclusion of activities undertaken in pursuance of its normal course of
business:
and/or
b) through a registered trust or a registered society or a company established
under Section 8 of the Act by the Company, either singly or along with its
holding or subsidiary or associate company, or along with any other
company or holding or subsidiary or associate company of such other
company, or otherwise.
However, if such trust/society/company has not been established by the
Company, either singly or along with its holding or subsidiary or associate
company, or along with any other company or holding or subsidiary or
associate company of such other company, then such trust/society/company
must have an established track-record of three years in undertaking similar
projects. Further, the Company ought to specify the projects or programmes
which need to be undertaken through these entities, and the modalities or
utilization of funds and monitoring and reporting mechanism.
CSR COMMITTEE AND ITS RESPONSIBILITIES
The Board has entrusted the CSR Committee with the task of formulating a
CSR Policy adopting the activities listed in Schedule VII to the Act.
Further, the Committee has also been asked to recommend a monitoring and
reporting mechanism to ensure that the activities included in the CSR policy are
undertaken and the funds allocated there-for are appropriately utilized.
DESIGNATED CSR ACTIVITIES
The Board of the Company has adopted all the activities listed in Schedule VII
to the Act for its CSR Policy namely:
- eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting preventive
health care and sanitation and making available safe drinking water;
- promoting education, including special education and employment
enhancing vocation skills especially among children, women, elderly,
and the differently abled and livelihood enhancement projects;
- promoting gender equality, empowering women, setting up homes and
hostels for women and orphans; setting up old age homes, day care
centres and such other facilities for senior citizens and measures for
reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward
groups;
- Ensuring environmental sustainability, ecological balance, protection of
flora and fauna, animal welfare, agro-forestry, conservation of natural
resources and maintaining quality of soil, air and water;
- Protection of national heritage, art and culture including restoration of
buildings and sites of historical importance and works of act, setting up
public libraries, promotion and development of traditional arts and
handicrafts;
- measures for the benefit of armed forces veterans, war widows and their
dependents;
- training to promote rural sports, nationality recognized sports, paralympic
sports and Olympic sports;
- contribution to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund or any other
fund set up by the Central Government for socio-economic development
and relief and welfare of the Scheduled Castes, the Schedules Tribes,
other backward classes, minorities and women;
- contribution or funds provided to technology incubators located within
academic institutions which are approved by the Central Government;
- rural development projects;
- slum area development.
Explanation – For the purpose of this item, the term ‘slum area’ shall
mean any area declared as such by the Central Government or any State
Government or any other competent authority under any law for the time
being in force.
The Company proposes to implement the above initiatives directly on its own
and/or through recognized trusts and societies having proven track record so as to
ensure compliance with the provisions of laws as detailed above.
EXECUTION PLAN/GOVERNANCE
Following execution, monitoring and reporting mechanism shall be followed by
the CSR Committee to ensure effective implementation of the CSR policy:
- Once the financial statements for a previous year are approved and audited,
the CSR Committee shall ascertain the amount required to be spent during
that current financial year and prepare a CSR Plan delineating the CSR
programmes to be carried out, identify the agencies which should carry out
those activities and allocate budget for each such activity. The CSR Plan
should be placed before the Board for its approval.
- After obtaining Board’s approval, the CSR Committee shall assign the task
of implementation of respective programmes to the designated
persons/agencies and set-out the time-lines for implementation.
- Such persons/agencies shall implement/execute the respective programmes
within the designated budget and time-lines, and report the status to the CSR
Committee periodically.
- On its part, the CSR Committee may meet periodically to take stock of the
orderly implementation of the CSR programmes and issue necessary
directions/guidelines in accordance with the CSR policy, and keep the Board
informed from time to time.
- Within 30 days of the end of the financial year, the CSR Committee shall
finalise its report for that year describing the programmes undertaken and
amount spent on each programme against budgeted allocation. All budget
overruns should be explained to and approved by the said Committee and
the Board.
- CSR Committee may meet as and when required to attend to business
assigned to it. Quorum for such meetings shall be two members present in
person. All decisions shall be approved by simple majority. The Committee
may even pass resolutions by circulation. Minutes of proceedings of the said
Committee meetings shall be recorded and signed by the Chairman of the
meeting, and shall be circulated to the Board.
EXECUTION PLAN/GOVERNANCE
- CSR Projects, activities or programmes that benefit only the employees of
the Company and their families shall not be considered as CSR activities.
- CSR projects, activities or programmes undertaken in India only shall
amount to eligible CSR activities under this policy
- This CSR Policy may be revised from time to time by the Board on its own
or based on the recommendations of the CSR Committee and shall always
be complaint with the extant provisions of laws.
