A study of csr spending pattern of sensex companies in india

There has been an immense focus on the topic of Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) in the recent times. Last decade saw a paradigm shift in the manner in which business operations are undertaken. Big industrial families often engaged in philanthropic activities contributing huge amounts for social, educational and community purposes. However, such donations did not belong to the shareholders but were often from personal savings. The inclusion of section 135 in Companies Act 2013 made it mandatory for companies to spend 2% of their net profits on CSR activities. It also lays down that the companies must explain the reasons if they fail to fulfill this requirement. Thus, mere disclosure of reasons for not spending the profits on CSR activities would amount to compliance of the provisions of law. The paper examines the pattern of CSR spending of 30 companies constituting the S&P BSE SENSEX index on CSR activities for years 2014-15 and 2015-16 and tries to reveal how they fared in their CSR initiatives.