Is economic stress visible in the CSR arena as well?

New Delhi, 15 December 2021: In the past few years, the Indian economy has been under huge stress owing to a number of reasons including Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns. Apparently, the number of companies contributing to the Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) too has declined and so has their contribution towards the social good.

In 2018-19, as many as 25,099 companies contributed to CSR. In the following years, there was a sharp decline witnessed when only 22,531 companies contributed to CSR. In 2020-21, only 1,619 companies contributed to the social good.

Even in the PSUs category, 615 companies were able to contribute for CSR in 2018-19. In subsequent years, the number of companies contributing towards CSR narrowed down to 452 followed by 20 in FY21.

A similar trend was visible in the non-PSUs category as well. In 2018-19, a total of 24,484 companies were able to contribute to the CSR. In subsequent years, 22,079 and 1,599 companies contributed to the CSR.

These details were given by Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on December 13 in the Lok Sabha.

Number of companies and total CSR expenditure year wise

The question was asked by Hemant Tukaram Godse, a parliamentarian coming from Nashik representing Shiv Sena. He asked, “Whether the Government maintains the records of private/Government companies/organisations participating in CSR activities in various States?”

In the last few years, the Indian economy has been in doldrums. In the last five years, three major decisions including demonetisation, implementation of GST and then Covid-19 have led to the biggest crisis.

It began in 2016 when the Prime Minister of India announced demonetisation of two high currency notes. It led to a cash crisis in India and many MSMEs were closed.

In March 2020, Modi announced a sudden lockdown and the country came to a standstill. The lockdown was imposed to restrict the spread of the virus in the country.

The Indian economy was trying to get back on track when the second wave of Covid-19 hit and wrecked havoc in the country taking lakhs of lives. All these crises have had an impact on the Indian economy.

Recently, Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman admitted in Lok Sabha, said, “As per the latest estimates released by National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI), India’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated to have contracted by 7.3 per cent during FY 2020-21. This contraction reflects the unparalleled effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the containment measures that were taken to control the pandemic.”