New Delhi, 12 October 2020: Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) has spent almost double of its prescribed Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) budget for the financial year 2019-20. The company’s major CSR focus was towards education, health sanitation, water, digitisation, sustainable livelihood, institutional building and social causes.
ABFRL is a manufacturer and retailer of branded apparel with a chain of apparel and accessories retail stores across India. The company’s average net profit for the last three financial years stood at Rs 87.17 Crore. Accordingly, the prescribed CSR expenditure (2% of the amount) was calculated as Rs 1.73 Crore. However the company went way ahead of its target and spent a total of Rs 3.39 Crore towards its CSR initiatives. The actual spend of the company on CSR activities was 96% more than the prescribed CSR budget.
As per the provisions of Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, a company is required to spend, in every financial year, at least 2% of the average net profit of the company made during the three immediately preceding financial years or where the company has not completed the period of three financial years since its incorporation, during such immediately preceding financial years in pursuance of its CSR Policy.
Details of the CSR expenditure in FY 2019-20
| Sector in which project is covered | Amount outlay (in Rs Crore) | Amount spent (in Rs Crore) |
| Education | 1.39 | 1.32 |
| Health and Sanitation | 0.21 | 0.27 |
| Water | 0.64 | 0.64 |
| Digitisation | 0.32 | 0.29 |
| Sustainable livelihood | 0.57 | 0.57 |
| Others | 0.36 | 0.29 |
| Total | 3.50 | 3.39 |
The company had planned an outlay of Rs 3.50 Crore towards CSR activities for the financial year 2019-20, out of which it managed to spend Rs 3.39 Crore.
The company’s CSR committee is chaired by Himanshu Kapania and other members include Sanjeeb Chaudhuri and Sushil Agarwal. Rajashree Birla, Chairperson, Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development and Dr. Pragnya Ram, Group Executive President, Corporate Communication & CSR, Aditya Birla Group, are the permanent invitees to the meetings of CSR committee.
According to ABFRL, it also strongly encourages voluntary employee participation in the CSR activities, and has a policy in place to facilitate this. The company undertakes CSR interventions in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Odisha through its independent entity called Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Jan Kalyan Trust (ABFR Jan Kalyan Trust) and collaborates and partners with other relevant organisations for implementing certain specific initiatives.
Key CSR activities and beneficiaries:
- Education:29,190 beneficiaries through various initiatives that includes School Transformation Project (Panvel), Academic Support Centers (Focus/Model Villages), spoken English and educational trip for students, notebooks, computers and other education aids support, special coaching classes for rural girls, and support to continuing education for rural dropout girls.
- Health and Sanitation:1,24,295 beneficiaries through - pulse polio immunization, eye camps, school health camps, specialised health camps such as cancer awareness and screening camps, WASH programs, awareness on disease prevention like Malaria, Dengue, Typhoid etc.
- Sustainable Livelihood: 1,186 youth were coached at a skills training centre as part of the Kaushalya and Edunet (1m1b) initiative.
- Water & Watershed:36,414 beneficiaries through - Watershed Projects, water purifier plant, rainwater harvesting at government schools, construction/renovation of community ponds, bore well recharge pits and water campaign.
- Digitization: 17,152 beneficiaries through - Village Information Centres, computer literacy training centres & smart classrooms at government schools.
- Other: 24,054 beneficiaries through various village development initiatives that includes plantation (green walkways), volunteering etc.
As part of Aditya Birla Group (ABG) as well as Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) community initiatives, the Company also designs its CSR initiatives for disadvantaged and vulnerable stakeholders.
