Corporates with only clean antecedents and high credibility welcome to partner with Swachh Bharat Abhiyan under CSR
The Modi government wants only corporates with clean antecedents and good reputation to contribute to the Swachh Bharat Mission.
It has also waived the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) provisions to allow contributions from abroad for Swachh Bharat Mission provided the bonafides of the contributors are clean.
In 2014, the government had brought contributions to the Swachh Bharat Kosh (SBK), an autonomous body set up under Swachh Bharat Mission, under the ambit of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of corporates and PSUs, who have to spend at least two per cent of their net profit on CSR.
However, only 0.68% of overall CSR spending by companies in 2014-15 went to the Swachh Bharat Kosh.
To attract more aid for the Swachh Bharat (Gramin) project, which is also lagging behind its 2019 target of building 12 crore toilets in rural India, Home Ministry has now allowed exemption to SBK from the FCRA Act, 2010 for accepting foreign contribution in cash or kind with retrospective effect from April 24, 2015. This would now allow foreign corporates and NGOs to also contribute to Swachh Bharat project.
The Home Ministry has put four conditions to the FCRA waiver allowed in June. “Due diligence will be exercised to ascertain the bonafides of the contributors prior to receiving any contributions in the field. The accounts will be compulsorily audited by CAG. All foreign contributions would be received in an exclusive designated bank account only and a separate set of accounts and records in respect of foreign contributions received and utilized would be maintained,“ the Home Ministry said in an order to Finance Ministry .
Such caution towards corpo rate contributions to the Swachh Bharat Mission is also evident in a revised `Framework of Engagement’ with PSU’s and Corporates prepared by the Government last week. It says the qualifying criteria for PSU’s or corporate houses to have a working arrangement with the Swachh Bharat Mission would be “clean antecedents and reputation, high credibility and reputation among people and capacity and outreach for engaging with community .“ The framework adds more areas to the list of activities that corporates can undertake besides contributing to SBK and adopting villages to build toilets. Corporates and PSU’s can now also nominate their young existing employees and sponsor their stints as `Swachh Bharat Fellows’ or identify suitable young talent and sponsor them as `Swachh Bharat Fellows’.
These fellows will be attached to each district collector to assist the collector in implementing the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
Corporates can also offer direct volunteering of their company’s staff for clean-up of the 100 iconic places identified by the government.
This article was taken from here.