National CSR awards on October 29

The government is set to host the first national corporate social responsibility awards on October 29. President Ram Nath Kovind, finance and corporate affairs minister Nirmala Sitharaman and minister of state for finance and corporate affairs Anurag Singh Thakur will be present at the function.
The awards are intended to encourage best practices in CSR and to recognise the efforts of companies that have utilised funds marked for CSR innovatively and effectively. Companies with a minimum net worth of Rs 500 crore, turnover of Rs 1,000 crore, or net profit of Rs 5 crore are required every year to spend at least 2% of their average profit for the previous three years on CSR activities.

Companies will be awarded for CSR projects across a range of categories including for overall corporate excellence in CSR programs, for CSR projects undertaken in what are considered "challenging areas" including areas affected by Naxal operations and backward districts and for CSR projects focusing on national priority areas such as drinking water, sanitation and women and child welfare, said a government official who did not wish to be named.

The official added that the government wanted to create a "gold standard" of CSR recognition as the government had commissioned outside experts for verification of CSR projects.

" We started with 528 projects and brought it down 108 which were verified by 16 independent experts from Tata Insititue of Social Sciences, IIM-Bhopal and Delhi School of Social Work and IRMA.

The official added that the government had felt that there was a need to bring rigorous assessment to CSR recognition which may be lacking in existing CSR awards.