Corporate social responsibility leaves out elderly

The Companies Act, which came into force earlier this month, doesn’t mention senior citizens as one of the beneficiaries of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligation of public and private sector companies. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Sep 17, 2013, 24:22:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, NEW DELHI

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India Inc will not be obliged under law to share their profits for the betterment of the elderly, about 8.5% of the population.

The Companies Act, which came into force earlier this month, doesn’t mention senior citizens as one of the beneficiaries of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligation of public and private sector companies. The law mandates companies worth more than `500 crore should spend at least 2% of their profit for society’s betterment through nine different listed CSR activities.

The company’s CSR board is required to pick any of the activities like eradicating hunger and poverty, promoting education and gender equality, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health from the seventh schedule in the law.

Alternatively, companies can donate money to the Prime Minister’s relief fund or other government fund for betterment of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes, minorities and women.

“While all other societal aspects of corporate social responsibility have been included, old age has not been touched upon,” Himanshu Rath, director of an advocacy group for elderly Agewell Foundation said, in a letter to corporate affairs minister Sachin Pilot.

The government can seek corporate India’s help to provide succour to elderly as the law empowers the Centre to amend the schedule (under section 467) and include more activities for corporate social responsibility.

From 103 million in 2011, the number of elderly is expected to triple by 2020, constituting 20% of the population. A World Health Organisation report in 2010 said that, with increase in affluence, the old were getting marginalised both socially and economically as India does not have a social and health security system for senior citizens.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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