Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in accelerating the change and uplifting the Disability Sector.

There are 600 million persons with disabilities in the world presently. 80% of them live in developing countries. A staggering 90 million people in India are disabled. That’s almost one in every ten. These figures in the very beginning of this article are not mentioned to create any sympathy for persons with disabilities. The purpose of mentioning these figures here is to illustrate that still 600 million persons with disabilities are being prevented from contributing to the world society (whether socially or economically) because of the barrier called disability.Disablement or the challenge of people with disabilities has always been ascribed to the problems of discrimination and deprivation across different nations of the world. The loss or limitation of opportunities to be a part of the mainstream with equal access to opportunities due to physical or social barriers pertains to the concept of disability. Disabled people are usually excluded from education, including vocational form of training, affecting their chances of being absorbed in any form of decent employment. In fact, global trends of employability has shown the women with disabilities on a lower average than their male counterparts. Although policies and programs exist for their betterment and support, yet, they are mostly not always implemented or come with gaps. In such a situation, the disabled people, especially the rural ones, have minimal or no access to basic welfare schemes and amenities.

However, there has been a shift in international thinking on disability from charity -based perspective to rights-based perspective. The world for and of the disabled is changing at a rapid pace and the aspirations as well as expectations of people are also changing as fast. Advances in medical and surgical sciences, breakthroughs in technology, greater understanding of the causes of disability and improved methods of coping with it, increasing consciousness of civil rights and the emergence of people with disabilities displaying skills and knowledge to improve their own lives, are some of the factors which have contributed to the new thinking. It is now recognized that the disabled deserve a dignified status in society on the same terms as the non-disabled. Disabled people are a vast minority group, which has been subjected to direct and indirect discrimination for centuries in most countries of the world, including India. The human rights movement has boldly and categorically shifted the attention of policy-makers from the mere provision of charitable services to vigorously protecting their basic right to dignity and self-respect. In the new scenario, the disabled are viewed as individuals with a wide range of abilities and each one of them willing and capable of utilising his/her potential and talents. Society, on the other hand, is seen as the real cause of the misery of people with disabilities since it continues to put numerous barriers as expressed in education, employment, architecture, transport, health and other activities.

 What exactly is CSR?

Corporate social responsibility is a business philosophy that stresses the importance of keeping the best interests of the wider society in mind. Although turning a profit every year and taking the business to new heights is likely to be main goal, it is important to consider the societal impact companies are having as well. Perhaps one of the most well-known examples of companies taking a CSR approach is through donating a portion of their profits to a charity of choice, to prove to the public they are working towards the good of society as well as of the business. However, corporate social responsibility isn’t just about picking a charity to donate to every year. A CSR mindset should be ingrained into every part of company’s business, from reducing your fleet’s carbon footprint to ensuring the welfare of the global workforce and ensuring products are built to the high standards that consumers expect and deserve.

Many may have doubt in their mind weather consumer actually take note of and care about what CSR strategies companies are employing? It turns out they do. According to a 2013 study by IPSOS Australia, eight out of ten Australians believe that corporate social responsibility is important. Additionally, 77 per cent of respondents thought that companies should be doing more to contribute to society. It’s clear to see that the modern consumer expects businesses to take a CSR approach, and the benefits of doing so are many fold. One of the strongest arguments for adopting CSR into the wider business strategy is the boost it brings to the organization’s brand image and reputation. A good public image is a crucial marketing asset and its importance just cannot be underestimated. In turn, this can lead to increased customer loyalty and sales. One of the findings from the IPSOS study was that 76 per cent of Australians said corporate social responsibility was an important factor when it came to making a purchase decision.

Corporate social responsibility isn’t just beneficial in maintaining a strong relationship with company’s customer base, however. One of the tenets of CSR is that the interests of all stakeholders in the business are taken care of, and this includes one of company’s most important assets – the staff. Having an effective and transparent CSR strategy in place has been consistently linked with increased employee satisfaction, productivity and retention.

There is no denying that in today’s business world, those that look outside the sphere of their organization and consider its social impacts are the ones that succeed.

CSR in India

CSR in India has traditionally been seen as a philanthropic activity. And in keeping with the Indian tradition, it was an activity that was performed but not deliberated. As a result, there is limited documentation on specific activities related to this concept. However, what was clearly evident that much of this had a national character encapsulated within it, whether it was endowing institutions to actively participating in India’s freedom movement, and embedded in the idea of trusteeship.

As some observers have pointed out, the practice of CSR in India still remains within the philanthropic space, but has moved from institutional building (educational, research and cultural) to community development through various projects. Also, with global influences and with communities becoming more active and demanding, there appears to be a discernible trend, that while CSR remains largely restricted to community development, it is getting more strategic in nature (that is, getting linked with business) than philanthropic, and a large number of companies are reporting the activities they are undertaking in this space in their official websites, annual reports, sustainability reports and even publishing CSR reports.

The Companies Act, 2013 has introduced the idea of CSR to the forefront and through its disclose-or-explain mandate, is promoting greater transparency and disclosure. Schedule VII of the Act, which lists out the CSR activities, suggests communities to be the focal point. On the other hand, by discussing a company’s relationship to its stakeholders and integrating CSR into its core operations, the draft rules suggest that CSR needs to go beyond communities and beyond the concept of philanthropy.

CSR: Companies Act 2013-Section 135

• Ministry of Corporate Affairs has recently notified Section 135 and Schedule VII of the Companies Act as well as the provisions of the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014  (CRS Rules) which has come into effect from 1st April 2014.

Applicability

Section 135 of the Companies Act provides the threshold limit for applicability of the CSR to a Company i.e.

• (a) Net worth of the company to be Rs. 500 crore or more;
• (b) Turnover of the company to be Rs. 1000 crore or more;
• (c) Net profit of the company to be Rs. 5 crore or more.

Further as per the CSR Rules, the provisions of CSR are not only applicable to Indian companies, but also applicable to branch and project offices of a foreign company in India.

CSR Committee and Policy

• Every qualifying company requires spending of at least 2% of its average net profit for the immediately preceding 3 financial years on CSR activities. Further, the qualifying company will be required to constitute a committee (CSR Committee) of the Board of Directors (Board) consisting of 3 or more directors. At least one is to be an independent director.
• Board’s Report shall disclose the constitution of CSR Committee
• CSR Committee will
  • Formulate CSR policy and recommend to board indicating the activities to be undertaken as specified in schedule vii
  • Recommend the amount of expenditure to be incurred
  • Monitor CSR Policy from time to time.

Board of Directors will:

• Approve CSR Policy
• Ensure implementation of CSR policy
• Disclose the contents of  CSR policy in the Board report
• Place the same on company’s website, if any
• Ensure CSR spending amounting to at least 2% of the average net profit of the preceding three financial years.
• Board’s Report shall specify the reasons for not spending the specified amount.
• There is no penalty for failure to spend 2% of net profit on CSR.

Schedule VII Activities

The activities that can be done by the company to achieve its CSR obligations include

• Eradicating extreme hunger & poverty
• Promotion of education
• Promoting gender equality and empowering women
• Reducing child mortality and improving maternal health
• Combating human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, malaria and other diseases
• Ensuring environment sustainability
• Employment enhancing vocational skills
• Social business projects
• Contributions to Prime Minister Fund or any other fund set up by the Central Government or the State Governments for socio-economic development and relief and funds for the welfare of the Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe
• such other matters as may be prescribed

Corporate social responsibility& Disability:

• Provisions relating to the activities of disability can be derived from the entry (ii) in Schedule – VII of the company act 2013Act:
• Promoting education, including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills especially among children, women, elderly, and the differently abled and livelihood enhancement projects
• Section 135 of the Company’s Act 2013, is regarding activities by Companies in their corporate social responsibility. Ministry of Corporate Affairs clarified vide Circular No. 21/2014 and OM No. 05/01/2014-CSR dated 18.06.2014 that provision for aids and appliances to the differently able persons is covered under Schedule VII (i) under promoting health care including preventive health care.

Projects of the ministry of social justice receiving funds under CSR
Projects of National Institute approved for CSR Funds during 2013-14:

Swami Vivekananda National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research, Cuttack (SVNIRTAR) is one of the premier Institute in the country under the administrative control of Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. It provides Locomotors Rehabilitation services to patients with disabilities on account of Polio, Cerebral Palsy, congenital Limb Deformities and Reconstructive surgeries for leprosy cured person etc. It also undertakes activities like human resource development, research, distribution of aids and appliances, vocational training, etc. The Institute intends to become a Centre of Excellence in the field of Locomotors rehabilitation services by upgrading its infrastructure in line with the international standards. The Rural Electrification Corporation Ltd. (RECL), one of the leading public sector enterprises under the administrative control of Ministry of Power, in accordance with their CSR policy has undertaken to assist the project financially. RECL will provide Rs. 296.00 lakhs for setting up of Modular Operation Theatre and advanced medical equipment’s. A Tripartite Memorandum of Agreement has been entered between the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, SVNIRTAR and RECL on 8.5.14. The procurement of medical equipment is in process.

National Conference on linking CSR with activities of the Department

• A “Two days Conference on Linking CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) with Activities of Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India” has been New Delhi on 30th and 3st October, 2014 with Knowledge – partnership of Vision Foundation for Development Management and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute for Physically Handicapped, New Delhi.

• The objective of the conference has been to promote various activities/domains under the Department of Disability Affairs amongst the corporate houses mandated under the law to undertake CSR.

Distribution Camps of Aids & Assistive Devices organized by ALIMCO – a PSU of the Department of Government of India has taken CSR for Past 03 Financial Year:

 Campus Conducted Under CSR Initiative of Various CPSUs during 2012-13

Campus Conducted Under CSR Initiative of Various CPSUs during 2012-13

Camps Conducted Under CSR Initiative of Various CPSUs during 2013-14

 MoU Signed Under CSR Initiative of Various CPSUs during 2014-15

Private Sector Initiatives

Bharat Matrimony, as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, thought of connecting people with disabilities including physical impairment, mobility impairment, hemiplegia, spinal impairment, vision impairment, learning disability, quadriplegia and paraplegia. They offered the entire service – from registration to seeking the right match – for free. The idea was to get all people with special needs, and those who wanted to marry them, on the same platform.

Interestingly, what makes this initiative special is not just the idea, but also the fact that the service is being provided for free and is a part of the CSR initiative of a dotcom/digital venture. Such CSR-oriented investment by a dotcom company in a country (with merely four per cent of the population using internet) where internet businesses are still at a nascent stage, is highly commendable.

Another fact to be acknowledged is that the company has focused on the ‘disability’ cause, which – for unknown reasons – does not rank high on the CSR initiatives list of many companies and is under-shadowed by environment, education, or public health.

 NASSCOM initiatives for the disabled

Another organization that talks about ‘total inclusion’ is NASSCOM Foundation (NF), the social development arm of NASSCOM, India’s premier information technology (IT) industry body. The organization is engaged in empowering and enabling persons with disabilities (PwDs) in the IT workforce.

To mark World Disability Day on December 3, 2010, NASSCOM Foundation launched a series of activities all across India, starting with the release of a Document on Workplace Inclusivity listing five principles that enable and empower PwDs, at NASSCOM’s Diversity & Inclusivity Summit 2010 held in Bangalore on November22.

‘The government has a target to ensure that three per cent of the workforce are PwDs. NASSCOM, through its Accessibility Initiative, is pushing hard to ensure that IT companies create policies, ease physical access to workplaces, and use assistive technologies. Some IT companies are doing some ground-breaking work here. We, at NASSCOM Foundation, want to encourage this and have released a document containing the principles and best practices to employ persons with disability. We will also have job fairs and volunteering and career counselling workshops for persons with disabilities,’ Rita Soni, CEO of NASSCOM Foundation, had said during the release of the document.
The organization did host a job fair for persons with disabilities on December 10, 2010, in New Delhi. The fair promoted employment not on the basis of compassion or reservation, but purely on their capabilities and their qualifications.
On December 16, 2010, the foundation organized a volunteering session in Kolkata for the employees of NASSCOM member companies. The session took the volunteers through an experience at an NGO, in order to sensitize employees to the challenges faced by PWDs.
NASSCOM Foundation also initiated the Accessibility Initiative in 2010. The initiative aims to create an industry platform to empower people with disabilities, using the collective strength of NASSCOM member companies. It has approached the issue through awareness building for employment, physical (barrier-free workplace) and web accessibility, and assistive technology.

Tata Steel

As part of its CSR, Tata Steel, too, claims that it believes in empowering the marginalized sections of society. The company, on a regular basis, also organizes sporting events and cultural programmes for the physically challenged.
On World Disability Day, 2010, to acknowledge that the challenged ones are an equal and important part of the community, the company organized a sports event. Around 200 visually impaired, hearing impaired and physically challenged special children participated in the event.

Tata Steel Rural Development Society organizes camps for people afflicted with leprosy. It works closely with various organizations to demonstrate self-care to those who suffer from leprosy and also distributes self-care kits. It also selects patients for reconstructive surgery.

IBM technology for disabled

IBM says that it believes in using its core competency – technology – to help solve some of the key issues of society. It developed Reading Companion, a programme to increase literacy among children and adults. It is a speech-recognition technology for the classroom. Accessibility is another programme designed specially to make technology accessible to groups who are conventionally not associated with using technology – physically/mentally challenged or socially/economically backward people.

IBM India supported the entire hardware and software requirements for computer centres at Victoria Memorial School for the Blind in Mumbai, Mitra Jyothi Centre for People with Disabilities in Bengaluru, and IETE-IBM computer centre, Noida, all of which are dedicated to providing IT skills to visually impaired people.
IBM professes commitment to an inclusive work environment where ideas and contributions are welcome regardless of gender, disability, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. The IBM website says that it hired its first person with disability in 1914. With almost a 100-year heritage of commitment, IBM’s Policy for People with Disabilities has since revolved around the 3As:

Accommodation: Facilities that IBM provides to enable employees to work more independently and productively

Accessibility: Providing people with disabilities the technology tools in the workplace and in the marketplace, such as voice-recognition software – the Homepage reader. Currently, there are nine Accessibility centres worldwide, each focusing on designing and deploying products appropriate for people with disabilities

Attitude: Changing the values and beliefs that some people have with regard to people with disabilities is very important. IBM actively recruits, hires and promotes people with disabilities. IBM helps promote an attitude of non-discrimination and offers opportunities to deserving individuals
In India, in addition to e-learning resources that focus specifically on building commitment to people with disability, IBM has a face-to-face Diversity & Inclusive Leadership training programme that is aimed to promote an inclusive workplace.
IBM has also initiated meetings with PwD employees to understand and address their unique concerns. It has established a voluntary PwD Network – ENABLERS at IBM, which is a forum in which PwD joiners can participate, especially when they are new to IBM. It has empanelled NGOs who are working to provide companies with qualified PwD candidates and assist them on this ongoing journey.

CSR is not only giving money for charity. It includes

• Employee welfare
• Equal opportunity
• To take part in major decision making
• Non discrimination
• Accessibility
• dens the candidate pool

Employers of persons with disability have always found that an alternate but equally competent candidate pool is especially useful where the skill pool is limited or employees are in short supply.

Cafe Coffee Day has large number of branches across the country. The demand for brew masters is so high that they were always short-staffed when it came to brew master’s position. EnAble India did the initial job analysis and found the brew master job most suitable for the hearing impaired candidates, provided we find the right workplace solution. Once the workplace solution was identified, eligible candidates were identified, trained and placed. Today, nearly 120 hearing impaired brew masters are working in Cafe Coffee Day all over the country.

Promotes diverse Workforce: Many organizations have already recognized that diversity among their workforce brings many business benefits like creative thinking and innovation that promotes efficiency, productivity and overall business success.

 Satyabhama, from TESCO, who is hearing impaired is always bubbling with ideas. One of her ideas has simplified the invoice processing method resulting in better productivity and quality of work. She also has won many awards for her efficiency.

Creates an inclusive organization: Being part of an inclusive organization boosts employee morale and team work. The new perspective helps in bringing out better and more inclusive products thus expanding the customer base.Thoman Xavier, Operations Support Manager from Shell says that the job of a petrol attendant is physically demanding. When fellow workers see that a person with disability is doing the same job cheerfully, it has a positive effect on the overall team.

Embodiment of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility): A socially responsible company is appreciated by its customers and stake holders thereby improving its public image.

Persons with disability constitute 1% of Thomson Reuters’ workforce in India. The company received the Helen Keller award in early 2008 for its efforts in providing employment opportunities for persons with disability.

Problems

• Accessibility
• Discrimination
• Isolation
• Hostile behaviour

Corporate Social Responsibility in India through NGO Partnership

 Combining Corporate Social responsibility in India through NGO partnership is a good idea and should be explored more in order to make the corporate world participate more in social and environmental progress, in its true sense and not in the sense of apparent responsibility. The difference between apparent responsibility and factual responsibility makes all the difference therefore we would have to make sure as a NGO representative that we are partnering and diverting the corporate funds towards creating a difference. Corporate Social Responsibility essentially is a strange term as it is isolates the corporate from the social responsibility and then attempts to connect them again to social responsibility. Corporations are also social structures, they are economic entities of course, but where is the conflict between economy and society? None in fact, economy and society are deeply interconnected systems and therefore corporate social responsibility should not be perceived as a term separating the corporate from social responsibility. Rather corporate social responsibility should be perceived as an obligatory responsibility of every corporate house as without the human society, can a corporate house conduct its business?

• These are questions that the NGO working with the corporate house can attempt to answer through the process of a partnership between a NGO and the concept of corporate social responsibility in India. The only aspect that we have to take care of that this partnership does not stay only on paper, but have some real good impact on the society. Good NGOs can play a very important role in this direction.