Current context: The government has amended the corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending norms to allow the corporates to spend on research and development (R&D) activities.
a. Waste Management Control
b. Research and Development activities
c. Water conservation
d. Afforestation
- The step has been taken to increase India’s spending on research and development (R&D) activities which is presently less than 1% of GDP for years.
- The government has allowed spending the CSR on:
- Research efforts in science, technology, medicine and engineering at major institutions and bodies.
- Investments in publicly-funded incubators (funded by Central or State government or any agency of a Central or State public sector undertaking).
- Autonomous bodies (established under the auspices of ICAR, ICMR, CSIR, DAE, DRDO, DST and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology).
- Contributions to publicly- funded universities, IITs, national laboratories.
- The Companies Act requires firms with 1) net worth of Rs 500 crore 2) turnover of Rs 1,000 crore or net profit of Rs 5 crore or more to set aside 2% of their average net profit over the last 3 years towards ‘approved’ CSR activities.
Question:
Q.1 Recently, the government has allowed corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending on _______ for corporate companies?a. Waste Management Control
b. Research and Development activities
c. Water conservation
d. Afforestation