The term ‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)’, in its most rudimentary sense, implies the responsibilities
that business houses owe to the society for ensuring public welfare. The term was coined with the primary goal of controlling corporate aggrandizement by ensuring that the fruits of progress are distributed amongst all sections of society- especially historically marginalized and deprived sections.
The Companies Act, 2013
The new Companies Act, 2013, marks a paradigm shift in the legislature’s conception of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
More specifically, it does not view Corporate Social Responsibility merely as a moral obligation that the corporate world owes to the society; instead, it imposes a mandatory obligation on all companies that meet the required criteria to play their part for alleviating the problems that continue to cripple our country.
More specifically, it does not view Corporate Social Responsibility merely as a moral obligation that the corporate world owes to the society; instead, it imposes a mandatory obligation on all companies that meet the required criteria to play their part for alleviating the problems that continue to cripple our country.
In a nation like India, where there exists a wide chasm between large business houses and millions of people who continue to live in grinding poverty, it is hoped that the new CSR provisions will pave the way for a more just and equitable social order and will ensure wider acceptance of the principle that the business of business is not merely business.
