Arun Jaitley to India Inc: Adopt arm's length approach for CSR

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday asked corporates to adopt arm's length approach while taking up CSR activities and not pursue proposals to subserve their own ends.

“I must say that in last 2-3 years it (CSR spending) has begun well. It has begun well because in the very initial years in the government we did calculate that the width of the whole CSR if adequately implemented in the very first year should be in the tune of Rs. 14,000 crore. Obviously, the entire amount was not invested,” Jaitley said after felicitating the recipients of HCL Grant 2017.

The Finance Minister added that mandatory CSR spending was introduced in 2013 and its implementation started in 2014.

Jaitley rued there was lack of understanding and consciousness about CSR spending and the purpose it serves.

"But as years are moving ahead, I think it is an idea which is working well. Of course strict discipline has to be enforced that the expenditure cannot be camouflaged as corporates start supporting their own corporate proposal on this strength and therefore there has to be some arm's length distance when we spend," he added.

Jaitley said that government's priority programmes are for sanitisation and housing for rural areas as also the irrigation.