27/01/2021
The Indian government made amendments to its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) provisions under the Companies Act, 2013.
The Rules called the “Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Amendment Rules, 2021” came into effect on 22 January 2021, and focuses on creating greater transparency and reporting on CSR activities in India
Overview of the Amendments:
- Organisations undertaking any CSR activity are required to register themselves with the Central Government by filing the form CSR-1 electronically with the Registrar of Companies. This will come into effect from April 1, 2021.
- A company may engage international organisations for designing, monitoring, and evaluation of the CSR projects or programmes as per its CSR policy as well as for the capacity building of their own personnel for CSR.
- Companies undertaking CSR projects must provide disclosure of the following information:
- Impact Assessment Report for average CSR activities with an average value of INR 10 Crores (~ EUR 1.13 Million)
- Execution plan of such CSR projects,
- Detail monitoring and reporting mechanism for the CSR projects. - Companies are required to disclose their CSR Policy and all of their CSR Projects on their website. This includes the composition of its CSR Committee, as approved by the Board of Directors.
- Unused CSR funds shall be ploughed back into the same project or shall be transferred to the Unspent CSR Account. This amount can be set off against the CSR requirements up to three immediate succeeding financial years.
- Changes to the format of the Annual Report on CSR Activities to be included in the Board’s Report,
- The board shall ensure that the administrative overheads shall not exceed 5% of the total CSR expenditure of the company for the financial year.
For more details of the Amendments, click below:
- Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Amendment Rules, 2021 (English Version starts on page 13)
- Gazette Notification