Jayant Sinha asks corporates to be participative in CSR activities

NEW DELHI: The corporate world should emulate public sector entities such as NTPC, Coal India Ltd as well Tata Group enterprises to make their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) contributions more meaningful, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha has said.

"The CSR activities being performed by Coal India, NTPC and enterprises run by Tatas in Jharkhand are so visible and pronounced that their impact is felt at the very first sight because of the developmental work that these have been undertaking to build connectivity and linkages."

"Such initiatives lead to participative CSR activities which the government wants the corporates to perform," Sinha said at an event organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He asked the corporates to make their contributions in a participative manner with the CSR projects that they are involved in by developing the local surroundings in an around their project sites rather than making plain contributions in an artificial manner.

CSR provisions under the Companies Act, 2013, came into effect from April 1 this year. Under the new Companies Act, certain class of profitable companies are required to spend at least 2 per cent of their three-year average annual net profit for CSR activities.