Funding tech incubators can qualify as CSR spend

Mon,27 May 2019

India Inc looking to lend a helping hand to the startup ecosystem will soon be able to use its corporate social responsibility corpus for the same. The government panel on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is likely to suggest tweaks to the CSR framework to allow funding to all incubators to be counted towards CSR spend, a government official privy to the deliberations said. As per the current provisions, contributions or funds provided to technology incubators located within academic institutions and approved by government qualify as CSR. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had sought widening of this definition to include other incubators as well, and it is likely to be part of the changes being considered for the CSR framework, the official said. Only about Rs 54 crore was spent on technology incubators under CSR during 2014-17, which is meagre compared to spend on education, at Rs 10,651 crore, and healthcare, at Rs 6,671 crore.

Source : The Economic Times