By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, January 28, 2018: In an effort to remove disparity in spending of Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR] fund, the Odisha government will soon institutionalize CSR activities in line with state’s development priorities.

For this purposed, the Odisha government has held a meeting with top corporates in the state to discuss institutionalisation of CSR activities.

Chairing the meet, Industries Department Principal Secretary Sanjeev Chopra admitted widespread disparity in CSR spending across districts. Ten Odisha districts had received about 93 per cent of the CSR spending during 2014-17 while the remaining 20 districts got only 7 per cent of the CSR fund.

The meeting was attended by Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD) Secretary Niten Chandra and Director Mansi Nimbhal. Chandra urged the corporates to take the initiative to extend equal job opportunities to people with disabilities.

It was mentioned that the Industrial Policy Resolution 2015 provides the corporates with 100 per cent reimbursement on account of contributions towards Employees State Insurance and Employees Provident Fund schemes for five years in MSMEs and priority sectors for employing skilled and semi-skilled persons with disabilities.

The state has developed first-of-its-kind interactive portal GOCARE (csr.odisha.gov.in) which acts as a one-stop shop for all CSR-related activities in Odisha.

Earlier, the state government constituted a CSR Council headed by the chief secretary to institutionalize CSR to reduce disparity in CSR spending and assist corporates to align their CSR activities.

The CSR Council, during its first meeting in December, recommended more than 800 projects provided by districts and welfare departments for the corporates to consider undertaking as part of their CSR activities.

The portal contains district- and block-level Human Development Indices which assist corporates to take better decisions during project selection.