New Delhi, 13 October 2020: Telecom giant Vodafone Idea which did not meet the prescribed CSR target in the financial year 2015-16 and 2016-17, has spent about Rs 32.5 Cr from its unspent CSR budget which amounted to the tune of Rs 72.72 Crore.
The company, however, did undertake CSR activities only after the Corporate Affairs Ministry interfered and directed the company which was just carrying forward its unspent pool of CSR money year by year.
In very clear words, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs had asked the company to spend its unspent CSR obligation for Financial Year 2015-16 and 2016-17 in eight equal quarters beginning from April 1, 2019.
In a letter dated April 9, 2019, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs - CSR Cell had directed the Company to spend the unspent CSR amount for Financial Year 2015-16 and Financial Year 2016-17, aggregating to Rs 72.72 Crore in8 equal quarterly installments, commencing from the quarter beginning April - June 2019.
Accordingly, the Company has been spending the amount of Rs 9.09 Cr every quarter towards the CSR activities since April - June, 2019 quarter. Thus, through the year 2019-20, the company spent a total of Rs 32.5 Cr which was close to half of its unspent CSR budget.
The CSR Committee which monitors the CSR activities of the company is chaired by Neena Gupta. Other members of the CSR Committee include Arun Adhikari, Krishnan Ramachandran and Ravinder Takkar.
For the record, the company did not have any CSR obligation for the year 2019-20, owing to its net average loss over the last three years. "In view of the losses incurred by the Company during the last two financial years, the Company has no obligation for CSR spend during the Financial Year 2019-20," the company said.
CSR focus areas:
The company’s CSR activities spread across multiple social issues including Agriculture, Education, Health, Livelihood andWomen Empowerment. As per the company, its CSR initiatives positively impacted the lives of around 28 lakh people across 18 states through multiple initiatives undertaken in the domains of Vidya - Education;Swasthya - Health; and Aamdani - Sustainable livelihood.
The company, which recently launched its new brand identity - "Vi",spent the highest amount of its CSR budget on Education followed by Agriculture. Below is the distribution of CSR spent on different CSR areas
Details of CSR expenditure
| CSR project focus area | CSR fund spent (in Rs Crore) |
| Education | 17.4 |
| Agriculture | 10.7 |
| Healthcare | 2.0 |
| Others | 6.3 |
All the CSR initiatives were implemented by Vodafone Idea’s in-house CSR team and also through its various implementation partners. The CSR implementation partners for the company included Centre for Knowledge Development, IPE Global, Buddy 4 Study Foundation, Learning Links Foundation, NIIT Foundation, Public Health Technologies Trust, NASSCOM Foundation, Mahila SEWA Trust and Village Social Transformation Foundation.
