New Delhi: The Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) that function under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG) have spent Rs 5,582.34 crore under their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in various parts of the country during the last three years (2018-19 to 2020-21). This information has been given by the Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli in Parliament on Monday. 

The Teli in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on Monday informed that Public Sector Oil Companies (Oil PSUs) have been earmarking 2 percent of their average net profits made during the three immediately preceding financial years as per Section 135 of the Companies Act and the CSR activities are undertaken under the heads identified under Schedule VII of the Companies Act 2013.

"The state/project/activities wise details of CSR activities undertaken and funds spent thereon during the last 3 years are available on the respective websites of the public sector oil companies, he informed the house.

Public sector oil companies have been doing impact assessment exercises of some of their major CSR projects internally or through external agencies.  However, as per changes made in CSR rules by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in January 2021, it has been decided that impact assessment of CSR projects having outlays of one crore rupees or more, shall be undertaken through an independent agency. The impact assessment reports shall be annexed to the annual report on CSR. 

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