In its recent weekly analysis, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy pointed out that India has close to 53 million unemployed people as of December 2021. If we were to account for disguised, seasonal unemployment and underemployment, this number would be much higher, reflecting the impact of Covid too. In 2014, India became the first country to make CSR mandatory to ensure that, as the corporate sector rides on India’s trajectory as one of the world’s fastest growing economies, it would also make a strong contribution to address its development challenges. While corporate philanthropy is not new to India, the formulation of the CSR Act was a new step. Over the years, though, it has gone through many ups and downs in its interpretation and implementation. The provision under section 135 (5) of the Act is noteworthy, as it provides that companies shall give preference to local areas and the areas around where it operates. Ideally, nurturing and caring for the area near one’s factory/office should be the responsibility of every organisation (beyond the CSR law) while investing in the weakest spots of the country should be the focus of CSR resources. In practice, this ‘preference’ of the local area has been turned into almost a mandatory by many organisations and that has resulted in siloed investing of CSR funds, largely in areas closer to cities, where corporate offices are located. In a way, some islands of excellence do exist but the consequent neglect of geographically isolated, less developed, resource-starved regions has created a wide landscape of neglect. This anomaly is also resulting in the mosquito-induced malaria problem; there is disproportionate attention and resources to solving the results, but comparatively less on the root causes. There is also the ever present issue of quick fixes vs systemic work. While there is a relevance and urgency for short-term measures, some issues, often called the ‘wicked problems’ worldwide, call for a longer term, more comprehensive, holistic approach, that’s often missing in the tightly mandated CSR programmes. That’s why the recent amendments to the act (defining ongoing projects that can be stretched over three financial years) might do some course correction. If implemented correctly, it will give the much needed space to grassroots organisations to innovate, learn, reflect and then course-correct with adequate time for each step. At the risk of calling out the elephant in the room, I would urge for a deep reflection on the power dynamics in the relationship between the CSR managers and their partner organisations, who often are treated as beneficiaries instead of being treated as experts, which they are. The top-down linear approach used in the implementation of most CSR projects often fails to/underscores harvest of insights based learning emerging from the ground. In all this, the nature of the key actors that do the work, play an important role. Data says that 44 per cent of CSR expenditure is spent by company’s own trusts/societies/Section 8 companies, while another 43 per cent is done through various implementation partners.
