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Good Values organizes CSR Roundtable on ‘Challenges & opportunities in CSR’

April 24, 2015

A year has passed since India implemented new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) guidelines, becoming the first country in the world to mandate corporate social responsibility.  Last year, on 1 April, the government introduced the Companies’ Act 2013, which included Section 135 that makes it mandatory for companies of a certain size (net worth of Rs. 5 billion or more, turnover of Rs. 10 billion or more or net profit of Rs. 5o million or more) to spend at least 2% of the average net profits of the company made during the three immediately preceding financial years, in pursuance of its CSR Policy.

So, what has really happened in the last year? What has changed? Are companies not enthusiastic to the idea because they still think the law is an additional burden or because they are not clear about the various provisions of the law? Has the industry made any progress on the law or is there still much ground to be covered? What are the views and opinions of the corporate world?

To answer these and other questions, Good Values India,  organized a select corporate Roundtable on the ‘Challenges and opportunities in CSR’ at the UK India Business Council in Mumbai last month. The Roundtable was attended by leading Indian companies such as P&G, Yes Bank, Tata Capital, The Neterwala Group, Transasia Biomedical, and Essar Foundation.

There were several engaging discussions at the Roundtable, centered around – the impact of the new CSR guidelines;  the importance of sustainability in a CSR programme; the need for corporates to invest in the capacity and capability building of NGOs in India; measurement as one of the biggest challenges faced by Indian companies; communication being a key element of the entire CSR strategy and the need for collaboration amongst organisations to maximize the social impact.

In view of the introduction of the new CSR guidelines by the Indian government, Good Values launched a series of Roundtables to provide a platform to leading corporates to share their learnings and talk about their experiences in this space. Contact us if you want to be a part of our next Roundtable in India.

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