Platform for ‘compassionate capitalism’ brings together corporates, NGOs

In an endeavour to usher in ‘compassionate capitalism’, the Bombay Stock Exchange, along with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) has launched a CSR initiative called Sammaan.

Launching the platform here on Wednesday, President Pranab Mukherjee urged industry leaders to use their business acumen to add value to society at large. “You have a bigger purpose than to merely earn profits. Just as you add value to your shareholders’ wealth, it is equally important to add value to the society at large”, he said.

‘CSR nothing new’ He said the notion of CSR is not new to India. “Mahatma Gandhi had espoused the socio-economic philosophy of trusteeship. It provided a means for wealthy people to be trustees to look after the welfare of the common man,” he said, adding that CSR has gradually evolved into the corporate framework.

Speaking at the launch event, BSE’s non-executive Chairman S Ramadorai said by law, 1,294 BSE-listed companies are required to spend about ₹8,000 crore on CSR in 2015-16. Of these, 1,167 companies have a CSR budget of less than ₹10 crore, he said, adding that the platform can facilitate corporates in selecting, monitoring and bringing together NGOs for CSR projects CII President Sumit Mazumdar said “business cannot succeed in societies that are struggling,” and underlined two key social development enablers that CII will focus on – women & child development and public health & sanitation.

Sammaan will serve as an intermediary between corporate India and non-government organisations with regard to various corporate social responsibility projects. It will also provide corporates with a programme dashboard to monitor funding and progress of their CSR programmes.