Fund from industries to be used in development projects
SHILLONG: Taking note of the Parliament legislation making it binding on industries and corporate houses to provide at least 2 per cent of the total profit for corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, the State Government has decided to constitute a committee to administer funds from various industries operating in the State towards CSR.
Informing this on Tuesday following a meeting with the representatives of the conglomeration of industries, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said that ways and means to best utilise the CSR activities for various developmental interventions in the State was also discussed.
“We have decided to create an institutional framework which would then be tasked with working on this whole term of reference that we have referred to,” Sangma said and added that based on this, there will be a forum that will have the responsibility of coming up with ways and means to administer the CSR fund in a more transparent and effective manner.
While stating that the decision will benefit people, the Chief Minister proposed that the committee will work out the prospective available funds for CSR activities by the industries.
According to Sangma, if the amount from the CSR is not enough to ultimately implement those developmental intervention based on the demand coming from stakeholders then the State government can chip in so that there is additional aggregation of resources for better outcome.
During the meeting, representatives of the industries also aired various concerns as well as challenges confronted by the industries in respect of power tariff, among other things.
The Chief Minister also said the Government would like to dismantle all the hurdles and ensure that an enabling environment is created for ensuring ease of doing business.
Responding to a query, Sangma admitted that power availability for industries is a challenge which has to be met to enable them to compete with their counterparts elsewhere.
The Chief Minister further said Meghalaya, along with other Northeastern states, should aggressively take up this issue with the Centre so that there is complete clarity on the North East Investment Promotion Policy (NEIPP) 2007.
He added that apart from the NEIPP 2007, the state government also has its own investment promotion policy to a certain limit as a supplement to the NEIPP.
He, however, said that the State Industrial Policy is a nominal intervention from the side of the government to supplement what was already covered under NEIPP.
“The NEIPP remains a crucial policy to ensure that the corporate houses which have investible reserve with them look at North East as an attractive option for extending their investment strategy,” Sangma said.
