CSR activities in India must amount to more than writing cheques,
donating to charity and having a good public relations image, Prem
Chand Gupta, Indian company affairs minister, told a recent meeting in
Delhi. Gupta said CSR was about ‘improving the general living standards
of the community, raising educational standards and creating a positive
impact on society’.
The minister delivered the message to Indian companies when he released
a publication, Corporate Social Responsibility: Concepts and Cases –
the Indian Experience. Corporates have a big role in a country such as
India, he said, but most companies still have a ‘limited or myopic
approach’ to CSR.
Jayant Buyan, deputy director-general of the Confederation of Indian
Industry, urged companies to change their mindset so as to encourage
young managers.
His theme was taken up by Pritam Singh, director of India’s Management
Development Institute: ‘In order to sensitize the youth of our country
on their corporate responsibility we need to inculcate it in their
curriculum. CSR is not something which can be forced upon someone, but
needs to be voluntarily taken up,’ he said. ‘Upcoming managers should
be taught to internalize CSR in their business strategies.’
However, he reminded businesspeople that socially responsible business
practice was not new to India. ‘The Gandhian philosophy of trusteeship
is similar to the CSR of the modern business world,’ he said.
