Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is mutually beneficial relationship between corporates and society, said Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday.

Addressing the 17th FICCI CSR Awards today at the FICCI CSR Summit and Awards, Prabhu said corporates and society were not mutually exclusive, one cannot survive without the other.

Therefore, CSR should not be seen as mere responsibility but a mutually beneficial relationship for both.

Speaking at the event, Rajashree Birla, Chairperson FICCI CSR & Community Development Committee, invoked the Gandhian philosophy of moral responsibility to bring about a change. The propagation of khadi by Gandhiji, she said, has today become a movement and an enterprise development model.

She said that the entrepreneurial instincts of tens of millions of India had given rise to over 36 million MSMEs.

People of this country have taken the enterprise development solutions for the empowerment of the vulnerable sections. The time now was to propel it to the next level, she added.

FICCI CSR Summit and Awards is an annual event of the FICCI Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence that promotes sharing, acknowledging CSR Best practices, opportunities for partnerships, scaling and replicating CSR programs and was instituted in 1999 by FICCI.

The summit deliberated on various aspects of incorporating Enterprise Development Model in CSR, the impact of CSR in India.