Parliament proceedings | 4-5% of ₹1.25 lakh crore spent on CSR funds in past 7 years went to PM Cares: Govt

New Delhi Of the total ₹1.25 lakh crore spent on CSR in the last seven years, only 4 to 5% funds h

Of the total ₹1.25 lakh crore spent on CSR in the last seven years, only 4 to 5% funds have gone to the PM Cares Fund and that too during the last two years amid COVID-19, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Rao Inderjit Singh told the Rajya Sabha on April 5.

Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, the Minister also informed the members that there was an attempt initially to include Chief Minister’s Relief fund for spending CSR funds but it was disallowed by the Government of India.

“Out of the ₹1.25 lakh crore that have been spent on CSR over the last seven years, not more than 4 to 5% has gone to the PM Cares fund. Most of that money has gone during Covid in two years,” Mr. Singh said.

He said prior to that, companies by themselves have been able to spend on all those activities that have been enumerated under the CSR pattern under Section 135 of Companies Act.

“There were attempts to make CSR funds go to the Chief Minister’s Fund, but it was not accepted by the Government of India. Because then, in whichever State the Chief Minister is then the funds from these companies will only go to the direction given by the Chief Minister. We don’t want to have that,” Mr. Singh said.

“The basic idea of spending CSR is to do the best you can for the public good. And it cannot necessarily be that only one person can think about and not the Chief Minister alone,” he said responding to a query by Prasanna Acharya (BJD) on whether the Chief Minister’s fund would be included in CSR spending.

Mr. Singh said it is a broad-based activity that the Board undertakes and we give general guidelines and the Board implements it. It is an activity pan-India, no matter where the company comes from, he said.