Committee to administer CSR funds

By Our Reporter

SHILLONG, NOV 15: The state government on Tuesday decided to constitute a committee to administer the funds from various industries operating in the state for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.

The decision was taken at a meeting convened by the chief minister Mukul Sangma with the representatives of the conglomeration of industries spread across the state.

Parliament has enacted an Act in 2013 and made effective in 2014, making it binding on the part of industries and corporate houses to provide at least 2 percent of the total profit for CSR activities.

The meeting was held to brainstorm on how to utilize this CSR component which is available with the corporate houses in taking care of various developmental interventions and to create greater visibility.

“We have decided to create an institutional framework which would then be assigned with the task of working on this whole term of reference which we have referred to,” Sangma told journalists after the meeting.

He said based on this there will be a forum which will then be assigned with the whole responsibility of coming up with appropriate term of reference for administering this funds in a much more transparent and effective manner.

According to him, this will ensure better outcome and ultimately people will benefitted.

Asked about the amount expected under the CSR, Sangma said the proposed committee will worked out and then look at what are the prospective available funds for CSR activities by the industries.

Further the chief minister also informed wherever needed, resources can be further aggregated by pulling in resources from other sources.

He said for example what will be the quantum of funds to be made available by the industries in as far as the CSR is concerned and based on that prospective preparation of developmental interventions based on what is required by the stakeholders then some whole action plan can be drawn up and based on that what is the actual requirement of funds.

“If the amount from the CSR is not enough to ultimately implement those developmental intervention based on the demand coming from stakeholders then the state government can chip in and top up some more fund so that there is additional aggregation of resources to have better outcome on our endeavour to create durable assets for ultimate good of the people,” the CM assured.

Meanwhile, the meeting also discussed various issues concerning certain factors, support through policy decision, certain concern which required to be attended to and number of other challenges confronted by the industries in respect to the quantum of power, power tariff and others.