Workshop on ‘CSR in India’

The Department of Sociology organized a workshop on Corporate Social Responsibility in India on Wednesday, 16 September 2015. It was attended by teachers and students of various departments including Applied Sociology, Social Work and Development Studies with a total of 90 participants. Resource person for the day was Ms. Abha Saxena from Social Equity Services. The context of the workshop was the implementation of mandatory CSR in India. The first session was on the provisions of CSR implementation based on Companies Act. She discussed the structure and provisions of the policy cum strategy document on CSR. Thrust was given on the understanding of what is CSR and what is not.

It was followed by a presentation by the II MA Applied Sociology students on their findings on CSR implementation of various companies in India. They had visited few organizations and reviewed the annual reports of some other companies. They discussed how the CSR implementation styles differ from companies to companies, the focus areas for CSR activities and different ways of taking CSR in a project mode with the help of Non Governmental Organisations.

The next session was on the current status of CSR implementation based on the data collected through various channels like NGO Box report, Mercer Survey etc for 2014-15. The cheque book philanthropy style of   companies were analysed very critically. This was followed by a discussion on the scope, opportunities as well as challenges of CSR implementation in India. It was a fruitful workshop in participatory manner with active dialogue between participants and the resource person.