IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF ‘CSR’ ACTIVITIES

[DR.MARIAPPAN GOVINDARAJAN]

Corporate Social Responsibility

Section 135(1) of the Companies Act, 2013 (‘Act’ for short) provides that every company having net worth of Rs.500 crore or more, or turnover of Rs.1000 crore or more or a net profit of Rs.5 crore or more during the immediately preceding financial year shall constitute a Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of the Board consisting of three or more directors, out of which at least one director shall be an independent director, for carrying out any of the activities listed in the Schedule VII to the Act.

Activities

Schedule VII to the Act provides the list of activities meant for corporate social responsibility by the companies as detailed below-

• eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition, promoting preventive health care and sanitation including contribution to the Swachh Bharat Kosh set-up by the Central Government for the promotion of sanitation and making available safe drinking water;
• promoting education, including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills especially among children, women, elderly, and the differently abled and livelihood enhancement projects;
• promoting gender equality, empowering women, setting up homes and hostels for women and orphans; setting up old age homes, day care centres and such other facilities for senior citizens and measures for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups;
• ensuring environmental sustainability, ecological balance, protection of flora and fauna, animal welfare, agroforestry, conservation of natural resources and maintaining quality of soil, air and water including contribution to the Clean Ganga Fund set-up by the Central Government for rejuvenation of river Ganga;
• protection of national heritage, art and culture including restoration of buildings and sites of historical importance and works of art; setting up public libraries; promotion and development of traditional arts and handicrafts;
• measures for the benefit of armed forces veterans, war widows and their dependents Central Armed Police Forces and Central Para Military Forces veterans, and their dependents including widows;
• training to promote rural sports, nationally recognised sports, paralympic sports and Olympic sports; 
• contribution to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund or Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund or any other-fund set up by the Central Government for socio-economic development and relief and welfare of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, other backward classes, minorities and women;
•  contribution to incubators or research and development projects in the field of science, technology, engineering and medicine, funded by the Central Government or State Government or Public Sector Undertaking or any agency of the Central Government or State Government;
• contributions to-

• public funded Universities;
• Indian Institute of Technology;
• National Laboratories and autonomous bodies established under Department of Atomic Energy;
• Department of Biotechnology;
• Department of Science and Technology;
• Department of Pharmaceuticals;
• Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy;
• Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and other bodies, namely Défense Research and Development Organisation;
• Indian Council of Agricultural Research;
• Indian Council of Medical Research  and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, engaged in conducting research in science, technology, engineering and medicine aimed at promoting Sustainable Development Goals;

• rural development projects
•  slum area development; and
• disaster management, including relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction activities.

Impact Assessment

Rule 8(3) of the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility) Rules, 2014 provides for the undertaking of impact assessment by the companies who spent money towards corporate social responsibility.  The expression ‘impact assessment’ has not been defined in the Act. 

Objects and purposes of impact assessment

The purpose of impact assessment is to assess the social impact of a particular CSR project. The intent is to encourage companies to take considered decisions before deploying CSR amounts and assess the impact of their CSR spending. This not only serves as feedback for companies to plan and allocate resources better but shall also deepen the impact of CSR.

CSR Impact Assessment refers to the systematic evaluation of a company's activities and initiatives in terms of their social, economic, and environmental impacts. It involves analysing the effects of these activities on various stakeholders, including employees, customers, communities, and the environment.

Eligibility

Rule 8(3) provides that every company having average CSR obligation of Rs.10 crore or more in pursuance of sub-section (5) of section 135 of the Act, in the 3 immediately preceding financial years, shall undertake impact assessment, through an independent agency, of their CSR projects having outlays of Rs.1 crore or more, and which have been completed not less than 1 year before undertaking the impact study.  Impact assessment shall be carried out project-wise only in cases where both the above conditions are fulfilled. In other cases, it can be taken up by the company on a voluntary basis.

Effective date

The provisions for impact assessment have come into effect from 22.01.2021. Accordingly, the company is required to undertake impact assessment of the CSR projects completed on or after January 22, 2021. However, as a good practice the Board may undertake impact assessment of completed projects of previous financial years.

Agency

The impact assessment shall not be done by the officers/directors of the company concerned.  It shall be conducted by an independent agency but not a person.  The impact agency may have the persons having thorough knowledge of the provisions of company law and provisions relating to CSR.  The professional firms who are not involved in the activities of the company may do the impact assessment.  However, the Board has the prerogative to decide on the eligibility criteria for selection of the independent agency for impact assessment.

Expenditure

A Company undertaking impact assessment may book the expenditure towards Corporate Social Responsibility for that financial year, which shall not exceed 2% of the total CSR expenditure for that financial year or Rs. 50 lakhs, whichever is higher. (with effect from 20.09.2022 – before this rate 1% of the total CSR expenditure for that financial year or Rs.50 lakhs whichever is less).  The said expenditure can be incurred by the company separately, in addition to the expenditure incurred for carrying out the CSR projects. 

In case two or more companies choose to collaborate for the implementation of a CSR project, then the impact assessment carried out by one company for the common project may be shared with the other companies for the purpose of disclosure to the Board and in the annual report on CSR. The sharing of the cost of impact assessment may be decided by the collaborating companies subject to the limit as prescribed in rule 8(3)(c) of the Companies (CSR Policy) Rules, 2014 for each company.

Report

Rule 8(3)(b) of the Companies (CSR Policy) Rules, 2014 provides that impact assessment reports shall be placed before the Board and shall be annexed to the report on CSR. It is clarified that web-link to access the complete impact assessment reports and providing executive summary of the impact assessment reports in the annual report on CSR, shall be considered as sufficient compliance of the said rule.

With effect from 20.09.2022 the company carrying out the CSR activities shall submit the annual report on CSR activities to be included in the Board’s report. 

• the executive summary along with web-link(s) of Impact Assessment of CSR Projects carried out in pursuance of sub-rule (3) of rule 8;
• Amount spent on Impact Assessment;
• the details of Impact assessment of CSR projects carried out in pursuance of sub-rule (3) of rule 8 of the Companies (Corporate Social responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 and the report is to be attached.
• Details of amount spent on impact assessment for ongoing projects.