Will CSR Projects Be a Game Changer for Rural Development? Evidence from India

Abstract

According to the world statistics, even today 1.3 billion people are without electricity while 3 billion people use unsafe and ineffective stoves for cooking. These people are generally from rural areas. Until they access these facilities, world cannot progress. Over the last 20 years, India has been experiencing noteworthy economic growth. However, India has 101 billionaires, 160 million rich and middle class people. But still India is struggling to earn a decent living for 600 million rural population who are below or just above the poverty line. It indicates that whatever wealth generated by India is imbalanced. Unless the standard of living of this people improves, India cannot be a global superpower. This rural population has been engaged in agriculture. Therefore, the main stress of livelihood activities is mostly around the agriculture. Therefore, there is a need of sufficient steps to achieve sustainable development of rural areas. The government‟s initiatives and mandatory CSR spends have made positive impact and mitigated rural economic challenges to some extent. But these efforts are not sufficient for overall development of rural areas. Companies can return something back to the society through CSR activities. Though the government has made mandatory to spend 2% of profit towards CSR, the companies have long been ignored rural livelihoods in India. Therefore, it is necessary to study the CSR initiatives taken by companies for rural development and to assess whether these CSR initiatives will be the game changer for rural development in India. The government has been taking continuous efforts for rural development. The government‟s initiatives as well as the role of CSR activities for the development of rural areas have been considered in the study. The article addresses CSR activities and the issues related to rural development in the light of implementation of mandatory CSR. The study concluded with the need of the efforts from different levels to improve the overall development of all the stakeholders and the entire rural community.