The Corporate Affairs Ministry (MCA) has now allowed Corporate India to spend its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds for carrying out awareness campaigns/ programmes or public outreach campaigns on Covid-19 vaccination programmes.

This will be treated as an eligible CSR activity under Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013, under items relating to promotion of healthcare, including preventive healthcare and sanitisation, promoting education and disaster management respectively.

The latest MCA clarification comes a few days ahead of India rolling out its Covid-19 vaccination programme on January 16. It is expected that around 3 lakh healthcare workers will get vaccine shots at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of the e nationwide vaccination drive.

Soon after the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, the MCA had announced that spending of CSR funds for Covid-19 would be treated as eligible CSR activity. Later, in August last year, it went a step further to treat the R&D spend on Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and medical devices as eligible CSR spend.

Commenting on the latest MCA move, Aseem Chawla, Managing Partner, ASC Legal, said: "This is a step in the right direction. Private partnership is much desired and, therefore, one may equally consider enabling aspects such as assistance in distribution and expenditure incurred in supply and logistics. Sponsoring local clinics administering the same should also be facilitated. Corporate India wishes to be seen and participate in this nation building activity”.

Harish Kumar, Partner, L&L Partners, said: “Amidst the demand by India Inc. to use CSR funds for vaccinating their employees, MCA has clarified that companies would be able to use CSR funds only for awareness programmes and public outreach campaigns with respect to the Covid-19 vaccination drive . Nevertheless, vaccinating the entire population of India poses a huge challenge for the Government and any contribution by Ind Inc. in this social cause is surely a welcome step”.

comment COMMENT NOW