CSR spending rose 131% in 2020; Rs 271 cr more in pipeline

Karnataka saw a 131% rise in corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending in the pandemic-hit year 2020 and much of this went into districts such as Dakshina Kannada, Kalaburagi and Kolar as industries looked to diversify their philanthropy beyond Bengaluru.

According to data from the Commerce & Industries Department, the CSR expenditure in 2018 was Rs 125 crore, which rose to Rs 289 crore last year. It was Rs 216 crore in 2019.

Last year, Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru Rural received a total of Rs 2.1 crore. This pales in comparison to Mysuru (Rs 195 crore), Dakshina Kannada (Rs 37.67 crore), Kalaburagi (Rs 12.16 crore) and Kolar (Rs 11.86 crore).

Law mandates wealthy companies to spend at least 2% of their average net profits of the previous three years on welfare activities.

Between 2014 and 2018, some 2,588 companies based in Karnataka spent Rs 4,143 crore of CSR money.

According to a report by Sattva Consulting last year, much of this money went into Bengaluru and its rural outbacks. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, seems to have pushed CSR funding outside Bengaluru.

“Certain people wanted to consciously donate to rural areas,” Panchayat Raj Secretary Uma Mahadevan, the officer designated to liaise with the private sector during the pandemic, told DH.

“We’ve had a groundswell of support from civil society and corporates to districts in both waves of the pandemic,” she said.

“We had great support in the second wave in Bengaluru and rural areas for health infrastructure, ventilators, oxygen cylinders, oxygen generation plants, consumables such as masks, PPE kits, face shields and so on.”

In May this year, the government launched tech-enabled portal Akanksha - akanksha.karnataka.gov.in - in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme to allow corporates to identify sectors where they want to pump their CSR money.

“Akanksha became a good platform for making visible the areas of need and matching offers of help,” Mahadevan said.

The Akanksha portal is linked with the government’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets. The government has set aside Rs 61,407 crore to meet SDGs in the current 2021-22 fiscal.

According to information made public by the government, corporates have committed to spend Rs 271 crore under CSR.

Of the 137 projects available, 90 are in the areas of health, women and child development.

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