SME Times News Bureau | 13 Aug, 2019
Injeti Srinivas, Secretary (Corporate Affairs),
on Tuesday presented the Report of the High Level Committee on CSR
to the Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman.
The Committee has made far reaching
recommendations. The main recommendations include, making CSR
expenditure tax deductible, provision for carry forward of unspent balance for
a period of 3 – 5 years, aligning Schedule 7 with the SDGs by adopting a SDG
plus framework (which would additionally include sports promotion, Senior
Citizens’ welfare, welfare of differently abled persons, disaster
management and heritage protection), balancing local area preferences with
national priorities, introducing impact assessment studies for CSR obligation
of 5 crore or more, and registration of implementation agencies on MCA portal.
The other recommendations include developing a
CSR exchange portal to connect contributors, beneficiaries and agencies,
allowing CSR in social benefit bonds, promoting social impact companies, and
third party assessment of major CSR projects.
The Committee has emphasized on not treating CSR
as a means of resource gap funding for government schemes. The Committee
discourages passive contribution of CSR into different funds included in
Schedule VII of the Act. It has emphasized on CSR spending as a board
driven process to provide innovative technology based solutions for social
problems.
The Committee has also recommended that companies
having CSR prescribed amount below Rs. 50 lakh may be exempted from
constituting a CSR Committee. The Committee has also recommended that
violation of CSR compliance may be made a civil offence and shifted to the
penalty regime.
The High Level Committee on CSR was constituted
in October, 2018 under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Corporate Affairs) to
review the existing CSR framework and make recommendations on strengthening the
CSR ecosystem, including monitoring implementation and evaluation of
outcomes.