Kishore Shah
India’s decision to mandate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) through the Companies Act, 2013 was globally path-breaking. Over a decade later, CSR has grown into a sizeable pool of development capital, especially as corporates, startups, unicorns, and investment-backed enterprises multiply. Yet, despite this scale, CSR today risks becoming convenient, cautious, and compliance, heavy, far removed from its transformative promise.
CSR currently sits within the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). While the MCA has ensured disclosures and procedural discipline, CSR is not its primary focus. Corporate governance, insolvency, investor protection, and legal compliance understandably dominate the ministry’s agenda. As a result, CSR is administered as a statutory requirement, not stewarded as a strategic national asset.
This positioning has produced predictable outcomes. CSR funds remain geographically skewed toward urban centres and corporate hubs. Familiar themes repeat themselves, while complex challenges—livelihood creation, skilling ecosystems, climate adaptation, and regional enterprise building—remain underfunded. Impact is still measured largely by money spent, not capabilities built.
More tellingly, the system has enabled a path of least resistance. Companies are legally permitted to deposit CSR funds into PM or CM relief funds. While indispensable during emergencies, these channels have increasingly become routine compliance routes—requiring minimal planning, local engagement, or accountability. What was intended as a provision for exceptional circumstances has, in many cases, evolved into a convenient default.
CSR decision-making is also shaped by proximity and comfort. Funding choices often reflect visibility, relationships, or administrative ease rather than objective need or long-term outcomes. Smaller NGOs, grassroots innovators, and social enterprises frequently struggle to access capital, while familiar institutions dominate CSR pipelines. None of this violates the law- but it dilutes intent.
Meanwhile, India’s development narrative has evolved. Under Viksit Bharat, the focus is no longer only poverty reduction, but opportunity creation at scale -jobs, skills, entrepreneurship, resilient communities, and future-ready infrastructure. CSR, if strategically guided, could meaningfully contribute to this shift. In its current compliance-centric form, it is structurally limited.
This invites a larger national reflection: has CSR outgrown its current regulatory home? A strong case exists for exploring a dedicated, autonomous CSR Ministry or National CSR Authority- not to control corporate action, but to provide direction. Such an institution could
define national and regional priorities, correct geographic and sectoral imbalances, discourage habitual reliance on relief-fund shortcuts outside genuine crises, and enable pooled, multi-company initiatives that deliver scale and sustainability. Most importantly, it could reorient CSR from expenditure to outcomes.
India governs growth, infrastructure, and finance through specialised institutions. CSR—now involving tens of thousands of crores annually—remains dispersed across compliance structures. In a $5-trillion economy-in-the-making, this misalignment merits thoughtful attention.
The question before us is not whether CSR should be mandatory. That is settled.
The more constructive question is how India can collectively evolve CSR into a disciplined, strategic, and future-ready nation-building instrument. That conversation is worth beginning carefully, collaboratively, and with intent.
(Managing Trustee, GDP Foundation) www.gdpideaz.org
