New Delhi: Students at the prestigious Harvard University will soon get tips on becoming socially responsible corporate citizens from Indian Central Public Sector Enterprises.
The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has been invited to a talk on the new guidelines on ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability for Central Public Sector Enterprises’, which came into effect from April 1. A Joint Secretary in the department, Ashok Pavadia, will do the honours on May 23.
Confirming the development, O.P. Rawat, Secretary in the department, told Business Line, “Corporate social behaviour is key to corporate social responsibility and a part of the net profit (for CSR activities) is just a component of the entire CSR exercise.”
This is a shift from the previous guidelines, which focussed on CSR activities for external stakeholders, that is addressing social causes and environmental concerns through CSR projects funded by an earmarked budget.
Earlier, CSR and sustainable development were treated as separate subjects, posing practical difficulties for companies. Now, keeping in line with international practice, these two have been clubbed together.
Now the thrust of CSR and sustainability is on capacity building, empowerment of communities, inclusive socio-economic growth, environment protection, promotion of green and energy-efficient technologies, development of backward regions, and uplift of the marginalised and under-privileged sections of the society.
Major project
Also, Central enterprises will have to mandatorily take up at least one major project for development of a backward district. This has the potential of contributing significantly to socio-economic growth in all backward regions in the long run.
For CSR activities, the World Bank has been providing technical support to DPE in areas such as capacity building, sharing of international best practices and advocacy. This has helped include strategic philanthropy, sustainability and creating shared value, with CSR being made part of business strategy.
“Corporate social responsibility is not just about writing a cheque of a fixed amount. It has many dimensions. These include actual change in the lives of the people through contributing to human development and social inclusion,” Shabnam Sinha, Senior Education and Institutional Development Specialist with the World Bank, said.
Sinha complimented the CSR activities by some Central enterprises such as NMDC, GAIL, ONGC and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers.
No comments:
Post a Comment