Companies CSR expenditure rises 47% in 4 years to FY18: Survey

New Delhi: Companies in India spent Rs 7,536.3 crore on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in 2017-18, a 47 percent rise compared to 2014-15, says a survey.

"This is a significant rise, clearly demonstrating higher expenditure towards CSR activities from the mandated year, 2014," said the KPMG India CSR Reporting Survey 2018.

The cumulative expenditure by top 100 companies from 2014-15 to 2017-18 is about Rs 26,385 crore, the survey said.

The average amount spent per company has gone up to Rs 76.1 crore as compared to Rs 58.8 crore during 2014-15, up 29 percent, it said.

The survey further said that the total unspent amount has reduced by Rs 749 crore to Rs 989 crore during 2017-18 from Rs 1,738 crore in 2014-15.

"This is the fourth year into the report and also government regulation to spend 2 percent on CSR. This year, the two outcomes which are showing progress due to the regulation are - governance around CSR and contribution of private sector in the development," said Santhosh Jayaram, Partner and Head, Sustainability and CSR Advisory, KPMG in India.

"The governance around CSR has improved to a great extent. The functioning of the CSR committee has shown significant development as increasing number of top executives are involved and CSR is also a board room discussion. The CSR spend is increasing over years and more private companies are crossing the 2 percent threshold," he added.

Energy and power sectors have spent the highest amount towards CSR at Rs 2,464.96 crore followed by BFSI at Rs 1,352.67 crore, customer products at Rs 635.41 crore, IT consulting and software at Rs 1,100 crore and mining and metal at Rs 647.12 crore.

The number of companies that have spent less than 2 percent has also substantially come down by 37 percent to 33 companies in 2017-18 from 52 in 2014-15.

State-wise, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are the top five states from an expenditure perspective, the survey added.