New Delhi, 5 March 2021: The northern state of Uttar Pradesh has got a major boost in CSR funding with the total spent on the CSR activities in the state growing by a significant 220 % over the period of 2014-19.
According to the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA), the state has received a total CSR funding of Rs 477 Cr in 2018-19 as compared to Rs 149 Cr in the year 2014-15..
Rural Development, Health Care, Education top gainers
The state which is tagged as one of the low rankers in terms of most of the development indices, witnessed major increase in the CSR funding to the key sectors like Rural Development, Health Care and Education.
Sample this:
In the year 2014-15, the total funding to the health care sector was only Rs 14.82 Cr. However, the funding grew multi-fold by 2018-19 to a whooping Rs 68.45 Cr, an amount which was close to 5 times the funding in 2014-15.
Similarly, the CSR funding in Healthcare almost doubled from Rs 74.27 Cr in 2014-15 to Rs 123 Cr in 2018-19.
The top gaining sector, however, was the Rural Development. The CSR spent on Rural Development was close to Rs 130 Cr as it topped the list of development sectors in terms of CSR funding. Just 5 years back, the Rural Development sector did not even figure in the top 3 sectors getting CSR funds.
HCL, PSUs emerges lead corporates
The state recorded mixed CSR funding from PSUs and non-PSUs. For example, the IT giant HCL was the top spender in the year 2018-19 whereas Power Grid Corporation of India and GAIL was positioned at number 2 and 3 respectively.
Top CSR funders - 2018-19
In 2014-15, however, NTPC was the top spender separated with a huge margin from the second and third top spender.
New corporates joining CSR league
According to the CSR data, the CSR boost to the state did not only depend on existing corporates increasing their CSR funding but many new corporates also joined the fray.
The state had only 296 companies doing CSR activities in the year 2014-15. This number significantly increased to a total of 847 companies in 2018-19.
Further, the coverage of CSR activities in the state also broadened with 56 out of 75 districts getting CSR funding as compared to only 47 districts in 2014-15.
