“To achieve the goal of social justice in the best possible manner, CSR must be integrated into our modern business strategy,” Gogoi said while speaking at an Associated Chambers of Commerce of India (ASSOCHAM) event. He said India is a developing country and although the country’s economy began to thrive post-privatization and globalization, the situation is different from that of the developed west. “Having entered the global marketplace without a particularly robust regulatory infrastructure and fully functional state services like schools, highways, or hospitals, we have experienced and continue to experience great inequities,” Gogoi feels.
Therefore, it requires the companies and businesses to act beyond their legal obligations to integrate social, environmental and ethical concerns into a company’s business process, he added. Gogoi also observed that one of the areas of greatest weakness concerning social protection relates to the extremely limited attention within the CSR agenda to the vast majority of workers, producers and enterprises in the country that are associated with micro and small enterprises, small-scale agriculture and the so-called informal sector’.
In India, corporates have been engaging themselves in philanthropy and charitable activities while embedding the same in law has given a new dimension to the CSR. Sharing CJI’s views, ASSOCHAM Senior Vice President Niranjan Hiranandani said the CSR should go well beyond the legal obligation and it should become part of an enterprise, starting from the top management.
