New Delhi, 17 September 2020: India’s largest battery manufacturer, Exide Industries spent Rs 20.76 Crore on its CSR activities, slightly more than its prescribed CSR budget of Rs 20.49 Crore.
During the year, the Kolkata headquartered energy storage and management solutions company, directed its CSR expenditure majorly towards health and education related programmes.
The average net profit of the Company for last three financial years stood at Rs 1024.28 Crore. Accordingly, the Prescribed CSR Expenditure (two percent of the averaged net profit over last three years) was Rs 20.49 crore. However, the company ended up spending Rs 27 lakh more on its Corporate Social Responsibility projects.
"The Company invested Rs. 2,076.00 Lakhs in FY 2019-20 for the successful execution of numerous CSR projects across all locations including the manufacturing units at Haryana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and at the national level," the Exide officials said.
The social investment projects at Exide revolve around the core thematic areas - basic education, health, environment management, women empowerment and community development - the main pillars of Exide’s CSR philosophy.
As per the company, the execution of its CSR endeavours is aimed at empowering larger community for holistic sustainable development.
Exide - CSR Project implementation
The company executed its CSR projects either directly or through its several partner organisations. Around three-fourth of the project was implemented by NGOs or government institutions.
"Nearly 75.35 per cent of the total CSR investments were executed through reputed NGOs/government institutions and government schools. While 24.65 per cent of the investments for relevant projects were implemented through in-house and dedicated CSR teams at each plant led by the Central CSR team," the CSR committee at Exide said.
The company also provided its financial support for several COVID-19 related relief services. This included support for critical medical equipment, distribution of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) & personal sanitisation kits for medical professionals, health workers, police personnel, sanitation workers, general public and migrant workers at various locations around its manufacturing units and also at its Head Office in Kolkata.
Exide - Key CSR activities
Overall, the Company spent its CSR budget mainly for promoting education, support for health with special emphasis on COVID-19 relief services. Other CSR projects were in the areas of sanitation, making available safe drinking water, promoting environmental sustainability and conservation of natural resources, women empowerment and unique livelihood enhancement programme which brought in inclusive growth, empowerment and insightful transformations within the beneficiary communities.
The CSR projects run by the company made direct interventions through significant social investments projects across all plant locations in Haryana, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Similar projects were also undertaken at the subsidiary plant locations in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
In 2019-20, the company also engaged its employees to volunteer for programmes related to education. As per the company the employees were also engaged in CSR projects related to environmental, health and sanitation interventions ranging from tree plantation, creation of botanical garden, blood donation, HIV AIDs awareness camps to community waste clean-up campaigns.
Exide CSR activities: Where the money went?
The major CSR activities undertaken by the company in the year 2019-20 is listed below:
| CSR Project | Location
(State-wise) | Amount Spent (in Rs lakh) |
| Promoting health care including preventive healthcare, sanitation & eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition | Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, West Bengal | 908.76 |
| Promoting healthcare including preventive health care; promoting education; setting up homes for orphans and measures for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups and including special education especially among the differently-abled | Maharashtra, West Bengal | 71.74 |
| Women Empowerment through promoting education including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills | West Bengal, Maharashtra | 66.45 |
| Promoting education among children, sanitation and making available safe drinking water, eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting health care including preventive health care, setting up homes for orphans and measures for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups | Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, | 466.22 |
| Promoting education especially among children, sanitation and making available safe drinking water & training to promote rural sport, nationally recognised sports | Maharashtra, West Bengal, Uttarakhand | 73.50 |
| Promoting health care including preventive health care, sanitation & eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition | Haryana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttarakhand | 299.74 |
| Enduring environmental sustainability, ecological balance, protection of flora and fauna, conservation of natural resources and maintaining quality of soil, air and water | Haryana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal | 115.29 |
The CSR committee at the company is chaired by Bharat D Shah who is also an Independent non-executive director at the company.
