2014-15 was the first year of CSR spending as per the new Companies Act 2013. As per data shared by the MCA, 266 companies did not spend the prescribed amount of CSR in 2014-15 amounting to Rs 2444 crore in unspent amount.

Factly had earlier reported on how the Indian Industry spent the CSR money in 2014-15, the first year of CSR spending as per the Companies act of 2013. As a follow up, Factly had filed an application under the RTI act with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) for detailed information on CSR spending of various companies. In response to the RTI application, the MCA provided data for 460 different companies out of which 266 spent less than the prescribed CSR amount. Prominent among them are MNCs like Apple, Nestle, Oracle, Monsanto etc.

ONGC is the largest defaulter in terms of absolute amount

Among the 266 companies that did not spend the prescribed CSR amount; the public sector ONGC did not spend Rs 165.38 crore, the largest among various companies. Bharti Airtel did not spend Rs 98.9 crore. The total unspent amount by these 266 companies stood at Rs 2444.6 crore. The top 10 companies accounted for Rs 865 crore in unspent amount.

Out of the 266 companies that did not spend the prescribed amount, one company did not spend more than 100 crore, 13 did not spend between 50-100 crore. 215 companies did not spend between 0-10 crore.

Well known MNCs among defaulters

Of the 266 companies that defaulted, 34 of them did not spend a single rupee on CSR. Prominent among them are Idea Cellular, PC Jewellers, Chettinad Cement, Finolex Cables, Parsvnath Developers, Monsanto etc. These 34 companies accounted for Rs 162 crore in unspent amount.

Indian arms of well known MNCs also figure in the defaulters list. Companies in the agriculture business like Monsanto, Syngenta figure in this list. Nestle India spent only Rs 8.51 crore against a prescribed amount of Rs 30.7 crore. Oracle Financial Services spent only Rs 11.93 crore against a prescribed amount of Rs 32.95 crore. Apple India spent only Rs 1.12 crore against a prescribed amount of Rs 5.45 crore. BMW India spent only Rs 0.02 crore against a prescribed amount of Rs 0.47 crore.

Companies say they did not find a suitable project

Among the reasons mentioned for not being able to spend the prescribed CSR amount, 85 companies said that they did not find a suitable project or the projects are multi-year projects. 75 companies mentioned that the delay was on account of FY 2014-15 being the first year of CSR. 35 companies did not mention any reason. For instance, Apple India mentioned that the delay is because of the first year of CSR.

Data of the 460 companies as provided by MCA