India Inc cheers Olympics heroes; CSR spends dry

NEW DELHI:  Even as Indian sportspersons win medals at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics and are being rewarded by India Inc, a look at the CSR spends of different companies suggests sports is hidden from view as a corporate social priority.

The CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) spends by companies mandated for sports are abysmally low, barring a few firms like Reliance, Hindustan Zinc, Tata etc. The CSR expenditure on sports has decreased from Rs 295 crore in FY19 to Rs 263 crore in FY20, and the share of sports in total CSR funds has been declining from 1.63% in FY18 to 1.41% in FY19 and to 1.23% in FY20, according to official data. This despite the fact that total CSR spending during the same period has gone up from Rs 18,728 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 21,200 crore in 2019-20.

Reliance Industries, Hindustan Zinc, Kotak Mahindra Bank and GAlL are some of the companies which have spent a high proportion of their CSR funds on encouraging sports in 2019-20. However, the top two companies in terms of CSR spends - Reliance Industries and Hindustan Zinc - saw their CSR spending in sports fall from Rs 48.65 crore and Rs 17.22 crore in FY19 to Rs 41.65 crore and Rs 17.15 crore in FY20 respectively.

The Reliance Foundation Young Champs programme was launched in 2015 by Reliance Foundation (RF) - the philanthropic arm of RIL -- with the aim of promoting top football talents in the country between 12-16 years of age. Since inception, Reliance’s sporting initiatives have reached Rs 2.15 crore youngsters across the country.

Tata Steel has also established training centres for 18 sports disciplines including archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, cricket and chess among others. Kotak Mahindra Bank contributes its CSR funds to JSW Foundation’s wrestling programme, P Gopichand’s badminton foundation, etc.