New Delhi, 13 November 2020: Mumbai based pharmaceutical company Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has failed to spend its complete prescribed corporate social responsibility (CSR) budget for five years in a row, despite its tall claims about taking CSR in a high spirit. Interestingly, the company which has failed to meet its mandatory CSR obligation year after year and has not been able to provide any convincing reason for the same has bagged good number of awards for its extraordinary CSR performance.
On its CSR initiatives, the company says, "Glenmark’s underlying belief is to make a positive contribution to the society and ensuring environment sustainability. We strive to create a healthier world and enrich lives of all our stakeholders and community at large through our CSR initiatives."
However, this statement does not match with its work on the ground. Not only the company has failed to spend its prescribed CSR budget consistently in the past five years, but has also failed miserably to provide any convincing reason about the same.
The company’s response as given in its annual reports has been same every year. It says, "The Company has been voluntarily carrying out CSR from Financial Year 2011 onwards. The actual spend of the Company on the CSR for this Financial Year was less than 2% of the average net profit for the last three years. The Company endeavors to increase the expenses in the coming years as more of its CSR projects are implemented."
Contrary to its promise to increase the CSR expenses in the coming years, its unspent budget has just increased. In 2015-16, the company unspent CSR budget was Rs 2.184 crore which has increased to Rs 13.317 crore in 2019-20.
In 2015-16, the company was not able to spent 15.48 per cent of its prescribed CSR budget. This unspent budget amount increased to 34.25 per cent in 2019-20 (see the table).
Know how company has spent its mandatory CSR obligation in the past five years.
| Year | Prescribed CSR budget (Rs crore) | Amount unspent (Rs crore) | (%) of prescribed CSR budget |
| 2015-16 | 14.107 | 2.184 | 15.48 |
| 2016-17 | 23.223 | 4.196 | 18.06 |
| 2017-18 | 38.479 | 9.148 | 23.77 |
| 2018-19 | 38.250 | 7.101 | 18.56 |
| 2019-20 | 38.875 | 13.317 | 34.25 |
Ironically, a company that fails to spend its prescribed CSR budget consistently bags CSR awards also. In 2017-18, the company was recognised by Union Minister of State for Law and Justice and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs for our commendable work in CSR at an event organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
It also claims to have bagged the coveted third India Pharma Awards 2018 for CSR Programme of the year by Department of Pharmaceuticals of Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers. This is the highest award for CSR in the pharmaceutical sector.
The company has been awarded by other players also for doing phenomenal work when comes to CSR.
