The Central government expects to collate the data on corporates' CSR spending activities under the new companies law by end of this year, according to an official.
However, the Centre was waiting for companies to file their compliance reports on meeting corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligation under the new Act, before it could move further on collating the data.
"We have to wait till compliance reports are filed by the companies for 2014-15 and then the data will be collated and only then we can know quantum spend on CSR under the new law," Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Sibani Swain said at an event organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce. According to her, by the end of this year , government will be able to collate the numbers.
A survey by a market research firm estimated Rs 4,000 crore as the spend from top 75 companies in the country.
The centre has made it mandatory for the companies with a net worth of more than Rs 500 crore or revenue of over Rs 1,000 crore or Rs 10 billion or a net profit exceeding Rs 5 crore or Rs 500 million to spend at least two per cent of their average net profit (last three years) for social development.
Swain said industry was demanding that the CSR spend should get tax advantage similar to Swachh Bharat and Clean Ganga programmes.
