CSR spend trebles in a decade, education & health get lion's share
While the overall CSR spending hit a record ₹34,909 crore in 2023-24, education and healthcare together accounted for more than 55% of the expenditure, up from 44% a decade before. In 2014-15, the CSR spending totalled ₹10,066 crore.
The share of these two sectors increased to 48-56% between 2019-20 and 2023-24 from 44-50% in the previous five years.
Companies have about 30 broad development sectors to choose from for their CSR activities. While many companies are trying to diversify their CSR spending, education and healthcare are gaining mainly at the cost of the traditional segments, according to the data.
Between 2019-20 and 2023-24, there was a decline in the average share of spending on rural development projects, eradicating poverty, hunger and malnutrition, Swachh Bharat Kosh, sanitation, safe drinking water, agroforestry, slum area development, socio-economic equalities and setting up homes and hostels for women from the levels in the previous five years.
Education widens lead
Education accounted for a record 35% of the CSR expenditure in 2023-24, widening its lead over healthcare (20%), thanks to the waning Covid-19 and other public health-related threats.
CSR spending on healthcare had exceeded that on education in only two years-2020-21 and 2021-22-in the wake of the pandemic.
Corporate India has raised its CSR spending on certain non-traditional segments at a much faster rate in recent years than earlier, showed an ET analysis of the ministry's data.
Between 2019-20 and 2023-24, the combined spending on animal welfare saw the highest increase of 310% to ₹1,331 crore, followed by 246% on senior citizens' welfare (₹503 crore), 150% on conservation of natural resources (₹1,536 crore), 144% on art and culture (₹2,840 crore), 137% on livelihood enhancement projects (₹6,961 crore), 137% on vocational skills (₹5,556 crore) and 111% on training to promote sports (₹2,094 crore).
The overall CSR spending from 2019-20 to 2023-24 shot up almost 89% from the previous five years to ₹1.44 lakh crore.
According to rules, companies with a net worth of at least ₹500 crore or annual turnover of more than ₹1,000 crore or net profit of more than ₹5 crore are required to spend annually at least 2% of their average net profit made in the previous three financial years on stipulated social initiatives.
Economic Times WhatsApp channel
)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
31 minutes ago
- Mint
Who is Sabih Khan, Apple's new COO with Indian roots?
Apple has named Sabih Khan as its Chief Operating Officer (COO), taking over from Jeff Williams, as part of a long-planned succession, news agency Reuters said on July 8. Khan, 58, has been with Apple for 30 years and is currently the senior vice president of operations. He oversees the company's global supply chain, supplier responsibility programmes, and operations teams. Khan will take on the new role later this month, the iPhone maker said in a statement. Before joining Apple's procurement group in 1995, Khan worked as an applications development engineer and key account technical leader at GE Plastics. Williams will continue to report to CEO Tim Cook and oversee the company's design team and Apple Watch. The design team will report directly to Cook after Williams retires late in the year. Khan was born in 1966 in Moradabad, Western Uttar Pradesh. When he was in school, his family moved to Singapore. Years later, the family relocated to the United States. In the US, Khan did a dual bachelor's degree in economics and mechanical engineering from Tufts University. He also has a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), New York. Khan joined Apple's procurement team in 1995 after working at GE Plastics as an applications development engineer. He has played a crucial role in delivering Apple's most innovative products to market and shaping the company's global operational strategy, according to Apple website. On June 27, 2019, Khan was named senior vice president of operations, reporting to Jeff Williams. In his role at Apple, Khan's operations department has been responsible for establishing partnerships with green manufacturing suppliers. Khan's department was ALSO responsible for changes to suppliers' operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his welcome statement, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook praised Khan as a key architect of Apple's supply chain. Cook also highlighted his role in driving advanced manufacturing technologies and expanding US manufacturing Cook said Khan's leadership in environmental sustainability has contributed to a more than 60 per cent reduction in Apple's carbon footprint. 'Sabih is a brilliant strategist who has been one of the central architects of Apple's supply chain. While overseeing Apple's supply chain, he has helped pioneer new technologies in advanced manufacturing, overseen the expansion of Apple's manufacturing footprint in the United States, and helped ensure that Apple can be nimble in response to global challenges,' Cook said. 'Above all, Sabih leads with his heart and his values, and I know he will make an exceptional chief operating officer,' the Apple CEO said.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
35 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Staying home during Covid to be treated as duty for trainees: Rail ministry
The Railway Ministry has clarified that stay-at-home period during Covid-19 lockdown would be counted as duty for trainee railway servants for increments in salaries. "As the Railways are aware, the training period spent by a railway servant, whether on remuneration of stipend or otherwise, is to be treated as duty, provided it is followed by confirmation, for the purposes of increments," read a circular dated July 7, 2025, addressed to all Zonal Railways and production units. The ministry's circular came after one of the Zonal Railways unit sought to know whether the period spent at home during nationwide lockdown due to pandemic be considered as duty also for the purpose of increments. The ministry said that it has already issued instructions in 2020 during the release of held up payments of stipends to the trainee railway servants for the period they had stayed at home during the lockdown due to Covid subject to a condition that this period must not exceed six months. "In view of this, the matter has once again been examined and it has further been decided that as a one-time measure the stay-at-home period (up to a maximum of six months only) of trainee railway servants due to nationwide lockdown due to Covid-19 may be treated as duty for the purposes of increments," the ministry said.
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Sebi order reflects misunderstanding of standard hedging practices: Jane Street
Mumbai: US-based Jane Street said the Indian capital market regulator's order accusing the trading firm of manipulative trading in equity derivatives reflects a 'misunderstanding of standard hedging practices and the interrelationships between derivative and underlying markets'. The firm, in an internal communication that ET has accessed, said the Securities and Exchange Board of India's claim that the firm's activity is "prima facie manipulative", disregards the role of liquidity providers and arbitrageurs in markets, while contesting claims that it was uncooperative with Sebi regarding its trading strategies. "This just isn't true. It doesn't line up with the facts of how we engaged with Sebi," the communication read. Last week, Sebi banned Jane Street from dealing in Indian securities market and directed it to pay ₹4,844 crore, which the regulator deemed as unlawful gains. The Indian regulator used a specific metric for market impact and trading aggressiveness which is disconnected from actual market dynamics, the trading firm said. The firm said when Sebi asked for information about its trading in August 2024, it promptly provided information and maintained transparent communication throughout follow-up questions. Similarly, upon receiving letters from the Indian stock exchanges in February this year, it immediately "turned off" trading activity to understand their concerns. Senior Jane Street leaders from Hong Kong and New York also flew to Mumbai and based on the conversation, made modifications to its trading, it said. Upon completion of the process, it believed that Sebi was comfortable with its approach. "Since February, we have made ongoing efforts to communicate with Sebi and have been consistently rebuffed. The order claims that this is an "urgent" situation, yet Sebi could have responded to any one of our requests to discuss their concerns." Countering Sebi's allegations that it was most active on expiry days of index options, Jane Street said the nature of the Indian market, where participants predominantly engage in cash-settled index options, results in liquidity providers (including themselves and others) accumulating stock price exposure that terminates at options expiry. "Replacing expiring deltas with non-expiring deltas is a standard and well-understood practice in markets throughout the world," the firm said. On the Sebi order emphasising examining the first eight minutes of trading on January 17, 2024, as crucial for understanding the intent and design of its options strategy, which the regulator termed as intra-day index manipulation, Jane Street explained that those eight minutes illustrate basic index arbitrage trading, a standard financial market mechanism that maintains the prices of related instruments in line. "One can easily observe that there was a large divergence between the Bank Nifty index price shown in the options markets and the price implied by the stock levels. Jane Street (presumably alongside other participants) traded in a direction consistent with closing that gap and bringing the two markets more in line with one another," the firm said. Such synchronisation, Jane Street said, was "unambiguously good for the health of financial markets".
