CSR funds should be utilized in a way that helps in “Nation Building”: Dr. Alok Mishra, JS, AIU at 8th National CSR Summit
New Delhi, 29th December: Shikhar NGO, a developmental organization facilitating community development initiatives, organized the 8th National CSR Summit here in New Delhi today, in association with the UN Global Compact Network India.
The CSR heads of several Corporate houses of India participated in the summit to discuss the Consequences and opportunities emerging from Covid-19 for CSR and also the ‘Corporate-NGO Compact’, an institutional framework of partnership and rules of engagement between the corporate sector and NGOs.
The need for a Corporate-NGO Compact has emerged from contested relationships between NGOs and Corporates due to issues ranging from spend of the financial resources to reporting and in-built transparency.
There was some hope of this relationship improving after Companies Act 1956 was amended with the provision of corporate social responsibility contributing 2 per cent of their net-profit, based on net-worth, net-profit and turnover.
Corporate also chose to spend their resources directly. This opening broadly also did not translate into a wide opportunity for NGOs and with government further accepting corporate donations; the situation has further narrowed down space for NGOs activities and operations.
The ongoing pandemic saw this trend visible where majority of the corporate sector undertook measures that included donating directly to the PM Cares Fund, deploying their employees as volunteers to undertake food distribution to migrant workers and such activities with an eye on branding and PR, or with immediate community including families of their employees, youth and religious institutions with little space left out for the NGOs.
This trend may potentially catch up, given the efficacy of the model and with no administrative expenses being incurred during such undertakings during direct implementation.
Given such trends, it would be important for NGOs to consider a review of their activities, initiatives, accompanying skills and knowledge and simultaneously prepare themselves for their abilities to extensively undertake such activities that may arise in future.
Moving forward, a mission driven method and professional competence of NGOs in the interim can be concentrated on by the NGO community and simultaneously begin to engage more objectively with the corporate sector for a joint working agenda for variety of current community works including the potential and future activities that the two would like to work on together for better outcomes, outputs, scale and impact.
The Summit began with a welcome address by Prof. R.K Suri, Chairman, Gargi College, University of Delhi. In his address, Prof. Suri applauded the NGOs for their efforts during the Covid period.
“The kind of work NGOs have done during Covid times is marvelous. They have shown the power of India. Many warriors from different NGOs came out to help poor people when they were migrating, when they were in dire need of the food, when they needed any help, and when nobody was coming out to help them due to Covid scare.”
Dr. Alok Mishra, JS, Association of Indian Universities was invited for this summit as a chief guest. In his address during the inaugural ceremony, Dr. Mishra urged the companies to utilize their CSR funds in a way that will help build the nation rather than just spending the funds just for the sake of doing it. He also touched upon how everyone including individuals and academia should undertake the responsibility of working for the welfare of the society.
In his quick address, Abhishek Kumar, Lead-CSR, LG India appreciated companies for undertaking selfless CSR activities when it was most required during the Covid times.
“Generally the companies are very competitive when it comes to spending under CSR. They thoroughly evaluate the benefits that the proposed CSR activities will bring and its impact on the brand equity, but this time the companies chose humanity over everything else.”
In his address, Aditya Ghildyal, Vice President, Shikhar talked about how the industries were hit due to the Covid-19 and how it impacted the employment.
“We lost 1 lakh 20 thousand jobs during Covid times in Gautam Buddh Nagar alone, which includes both white and blue collar jobs.”
“However, the Industries have recovered now and the job opportunities are expected to rise up again.”
Towards the end of Summit, National CSR Awards were conferred upon to Sonu Sood, Bollywood Actor/ Social Activist- Maharashtra; Hamdard National Foundation – Delhi; Nasscom Foundation- Uttar Pradesh; Sonalika CSR- Punjab; Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Trust-Haryana; Noida Village Residents Association-Uttar Pradesh; Oscar Plus Elevators-Delhi.
After receiving the award, Chairperson of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Trust, Dr Shamim Qureshi, spoke to Ten News and shared the initiatives taken by her NGO during the Covid period.
“We provided 15-day dry ration to 3000 families for 4 months and manufactured around 2500 cloth masks. In order to help the school going students especially in rural areas, we distributed NCERT and Arihant books. Blanket and woolen socks, gloves were distributed during the winters,” said Dr. Qureshi.
