CSR spend may cover skilling individuals

The government is considering widening the scope of corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending to enable the corporates and institutions to fund skills training of individuals.

The Ministry of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship has proposed the 'Gift a Skill' concept to be linked with either the Reserve Bank of India's digital currency e-Rupi or 'skill voucher' wherein individuals, corporate and institutions can sponsor skill development of another individual through skill vouchers, a senior government official said.

The enterprises will be incentivised to take up skills training of individuals as the government aims to scale up training of candidates to cater to the growing demand.


The government is also exploring the possibility of creating a 'Skill Wallet' to enable easier transactions for such CSR activity, the person said.

"The idea is to handhold CSR practices for corporates, streamline processes, and incentivise their participation through various means including, co-branding of their training programmes and utilising e-Rupi or skill voucher for CSR-based training," the official said.

These proposals are being examined actively and a final call would be taken up shortly, the official added.

The Companies Act, 2013 requires companies with a net worth of ₹500 crore or more, or turnover of ₹1,000 crore or more, or a net profit of ₹5 crore or more during the immediately preceding three years to spend 2% of the average net profit on CSR activities. The activities covered under CSR are notified by the government.

According to the official, the focus of the proposed CSR-backed training will be on green jobs and emerging sectors including electric vehicles, renewables, and solid and liquid waste management.

For this, the ministry will undertake mapping exercises across key sectors and then integrate the requirements with education, skilling, and re-skilling. This will help in estimating job losses in traditional sectors and demand for skilled professionals across emerging sectors, the official said.

At present, only 21.2% of labour force in India is 'skilled', compared to 99.9% in Japan, 86% in South Korea, and 85.7% in France.

As part of its Vision 2047, the skills development and entrepreneurship ministry aims to impart 100% skills training to India's projected labour force by 2047 and is, hence, seeking greater participation of the private sector.

So far, nearly 55 million candidates have been imparted skills training. This is way off the mark considering the government's Skill India Mission target of training 400 million youth by 2022.