Factly had earlier reported that the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure by various companies in 2015-16 had increased by around 11.6% as per the data compiled by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). As per the data available with MCA, 5097 companies spent a total of Rs 9822 crore in 2015-16. In contrast, 7334 companies spent Rs 8803 crore in 2014-15 on various CSR activities. Out of the 5097 companies whose data is available with the MCA, twenty-two (22) of them accounted for more than 50% of the total CSR expenditure in 2015-16.

Close to 2000 companies did not spend a single rupee

A total of 10 companies spent more than Rs 200 crore on CSR in 2015-16. Five (5) of these are Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) while the remaining five are private companies. Like in 2014-15, the highest amount was spent by Reliance (Rs 652 crore) followed by NTPC (Rs 492 crore). Only 2 of the top 10 are IT companies (Infosys & TCS). In 2014-15, Wipro was also one of the top 10 spenders along with Infosys & TCS.

Out of the 5097 companies whose data is available with the MCA, 1979 did not spend a single rupee on CSR activities in 2015-16. Another 2528 companies spent less than a crore rupees each on CSR. 836 of these companies spent less than a lakh rupees each on CSR. 471 companies spent between one and ten crore rupees each on CSR while 79 of them spent between 10 and 50 crore rupees each. Twenty of them spent between 50 and 100 crore each while 20 other companies spent more than 100 crore rupees each. Twenty (20) of the top 40 companies that spent more than 50 crore each are PSUs.

However, whether the companies spent the mandatory 2% could not be ascertained since the data of average net profits of these companies is not compiled by the MCA.

Most CSR expenditure in Maharashtra

In terms of states, most of the CSR expenditure was in Maharashtra. In fact, it is the only state with more than Rs 1000 crore in CSR expenditure. The next most CSR expenditure was in Karnataka (Rs 408 crore).  The CSR expenditure was more than Rs 200 crore in only 10 states while it was more than Rs 100 crore in 15 states. Less than a crore rupees each was spent in Tripura, Nagaland & Sikkim. It has to be noted that the data for state wise expenditure for an amount of Rs 4871 crore was not available.

Bulk of the spending on Health & Education

Like in 2014-15, bulk of the CSR expenditure in 2015-16 was in the Health & Education sectors. Maximum amount of spending was on Health & WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene). Education & Livelihood accounted for the second most CSR spending in 2015-16 (Rs 3073 crore). Only Rs 3 crore was spent on ‘Clean Ganga’ compared to the Rs 15.5 crore in 2014-15.