Charity & CSR

-
Who Gives in India? Charity & CSR Mapping (FY 2023–24)

Who Gives  India? Mapping Charity & CSR in FY 2023–24

Author: Shatabda Basu

In the Indian civilisational context, social and charitable contribution has long been viewed as a measure of responsibility rather than mere prosperity. From early Vedic thought, where social obligation was articulated through ideas such as the pancha yajña, to later religious and community traditions, giving has been culturally valued alongside earning.

Guided by this attitude, and through ongoing observation and discussion, what follows is a carefully compiled snapshot of India’s organised charitable and CSR landscape for FY 2023–24.  I have cross-checked all the  figures my self against publicly available annual reports and income–expenditure statements, with the aim of placing authantic comparable numbers in one place.

It is intended to serve as a factual baseline—from which more meaningful insights, critiques, and questions about scale, structure, and impact can be drawn.

Rank Organisation Type
Expenditure (₹ crore – numeric)
Domains Source
1 Reliance Foundation Corporate CSR (Reliance Industries)
1592 crore
Rural transformation, Health, Education, Livelihoods, Climate resilience CSR Report FY 2023–24 (PDF)
2 Azim Premji Foundation Family foundation / grant & programme implementer
1528 crore
Education, partner NGOs, university, nutrition Foundation Report 2023–24
3 Ramakrishna Math & Mission (RKM) NGO / Religious mission (implementer)
1292.03 crore
Education, Health, Rural development, Tribal development, Disaster relief, Agricultur , Women,Culture Belur Math AGM / Statesman report
4 HDFC Bank Foundation / CSR Corporate CSR (Bank)
954.31 crore
Education, Healthcare, Livelihoods CSR Booklet, Economic Times
5 Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Corporate CSR
827 crore
Education, Digital skilling, Health, Environment TCS CSR Overview (Official)
6 Akshaya Patra Foundation (ISKCON) NGO (implementer)
708.4 crore
Mid-day meals, Nutrition, School attendance Akshaya Patra Annual Reports
7 Tata Trusts Corporate philanthropic trust (grant-maker)
699.32 crore
Health, Education, Livelihoods, Nutrition, Disaster Tata Trusts Annual Reports
8 Infosys Foundation Corporate CSR / Foundation
577 crore
Education, Digital skilling, Health, Women empowerment, Culture Infosys Foundation Report
9 Tata Steel Foundation Corporate CSR (Tata Steel)
572.74 crore
Health, Education, Livelihoods, Community development Integrated Report 2023–24
10 ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth Corporate CSR (Bank)
517.99 crore
Skill Development, Livelihoods, Education ICICI CSR Report
11 Vedanta Foundation / Vedanta Ltd. Corporate CSR
438 crore
Health, Nutrition, Education, Women Empowerment Vedanta Integrated Report 2023–24
12 ITC Limited CSR Corporate CSR
404.05 crore
Agriculture, Education, Environment, Livelihoods ITC Annual Report 2023–24
13 Pratham Education Foundation NGO (education)
299.02 crore
Basic education, Learning outcomes Pratham Annual Report FY 2023–24
14 JSW Foundation (JSW Group) Corporate CSR
298 crore
Education, Sports, Health, Livelihoods JSW CSR Report 2023–24
15 Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUL CSR) Corporate CSR
234 crore
Water Security, Sanitation, Health HUL Sustainability Report 2023–24
16 Wipro Ltd. Corporate CSR
216 crore
Education, Environment, Community Care Wipro Sustainability Report 2023–24
17 Plan International India International NGO / India chapter
198.68 crore
Child development, Gender equality, Livelihoods Plan India Annual Report 2023–24
18 SOS Children’s Villages India NGO (child welfare)
170.36 crore
Child welfare, Family strengthening SOS Children’s Villages India – Annual Reports
19 Larsen & Toubro Public Charitable Trust Corporate CSR
154.83 crore
Skill Development, Education, Health Larsen & Toubro Annual Reports (Investor Portal)
20 Smile Foundation NGO (multi-programme)
121.75 crore
Education, Health, Livelihood, Women empowerment Smile Foundation Financials FY 2023–24
21 Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Corporate CSR
112.74 crore
Education, Health, Livelihood, Women empowerment Mahindra CSR Report 2023–24

Note: Financial figures and beneficiary counts are based on FY 2023–24 disclosures from official annual reports, CSR filings, and reputable media sources available at the time of publication. Some links may change over time due to organisational website updates.


1. Who the hell are you

1. Why create another list when magazines and CSR reports already exist?
Because existing lists do not show the entire  landscape together.

2. Why mix CSR, NGOs, foundations, and religious bodies when they follow different rules?
Because they all spend money on the same society, in the same country, in the same year, and separating them hides the overall scale.

3. Why compare organisations that spend by law (CSR) with those that spend voluntarily?
Because the spending is real, with traceable impact, whatever the intention may be.

4. Why use expenditure instead of impact or outcomes?
Because expenditure is material, traceable, and auditable, while impact measurement is inconsistent, subjective, and methodologically chaotic.

5. Why name powerful philanthropists but refuse to rank their giving?
Dedicated a full paragragph below 3.1.

6. Why exclude organisations that clearly do large amounts of work?
Because they do not publish usable, consolidated financial disclosures in the public domain.

7. Why should anyone trust your rules over institutional rankings?
Because the rules used here are explicit, consistent, and open to inspection.

2. Methodology

The principles below guided how I chose, checked, and arranged the data:

  • Data pertains strictly to FY 2023–24.

  • Only publicly available disclosures were used, including audited annual reports, statutory CSR filings, income–expenditure statements, and officially released organisational summaries.

  • No estimates, projections, or media-reported pledge figures have been included. Press coverage was used only as a secondary aid to locate primary documents, not as a data source.

  • Ranking is based solely on reported annual expenditure for the financial year.

3. Limitations

There were some shortcomings in this exercise—not out of laziness, but due to boundaries I consciously chose. These boundaries are guided by the rules of inclusion and by my decision to privilege verifiability over shininess.

3.1 Individual Philanthropy (the big money still not ranked — why?)

Individual philanthropy is distinct from corporate CSR. Unlike CSR under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, it carries no legal obligation and is a fully voluntary practice. As a result, it is far less regulated, less standardised, and weakly documented in the public domain.

For this reason, individual philanthropy has been excluded from ranking. This does not imply insignificance or lack of impact; it reflects the absence of consistent, year-wise, publicly auditable disclosures. Widely cited rankings (such as Hurun or EdelGive–Hurun) rely largely on pledges or aggregated estimates, making them unsuitable for a strict expenditure-based comparison.

Despite this, the scale of individual philanthropy in India is undeniable. Major contributors acknowledged here include:

  • Shiv Nadar and family — ₹2,153 crore

  • Mukesh Ambani and family — ₹407 crore

  • Bajaj family — ₹352 crore

3.2 Other Structural Limitations

  1. It does not attempt to measure impact quality, cost efficiency, or long-term developmental outcomes.

  2. Beneficiary figures are inherently ambiguous across organisations due to differing technical definitions and reporting methodologies. This ambiguity is structural to the sector and not a result of data handling in this study.

  3. Figures are not normalised across organisations due to the absence of a common, sector-wide beneficiary-definition framework.

  4. Organisations without consolidated, clearly attributable FY 2023–24 financial disclosures have been excluded to preserve comparability and data integrity.

  5. At the time of compilation, official FY 2023–24 reports for some organisations were not publicly available; such organisations were therefore excluded and may be incorporated in future revisions.

4. Eligibility Criteria for Inclusion

An organisation was included in this snapshot only if all of the following were available in the public domain. I applied these criteria strictly and uniformly, even when it meant leaving out well-known names, because financial clarity mattered more to me than reputational comfort.

  • Audited balance sheet and income–expenditure statement

  • Clear attribution of expenditure to FY 2023–24

  • Disclosure of programme or CSR spending (not pledges or corpus size)

  • Publicly accessible source (official website, statutory filing, or annual report)

  • Limited press coverage used only to corroborate the existence and timing of primary disclosures

  • Organisations whose primary activities are centred on religious proselytisation or conversion rather than humanitarian secular charitable service are deliberately excluded

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adi Sankacharya

-
Image
``` The Man Who Killed God to Establish Your Godliness — The vibe of Śaṅkara — Author : Shatabda Basu cahpter 1  : The Vibe of sankara chapter 2  : Sankara almost invisible chapter 3  :  So How He Became The BOSS chapter 4  :  Ressurection By Swami Vivekananda 1. The vibe of Śaṅkara A man shadowed in myth and legend—because truth at that altitude always is. Literally the Batman of Hindus, stealthy, invisible, precise, without temples and monasteries, no patrons, no speech, who ruthlessly devastated every idea, every reasoning, every belief that insults you by calling you merely a man. Nay—you are Śiva Himself, drunk in His own ignorance of His own infinitude. You are that light which makes the sun shine. The moon borrows your light. The thunder sings of your glory—what then of this small world? न तत्र सूर्यो भाति न चन्द्रतारकं नेमा विद्युतो भान्ति कुतोऽयम् अग्निः । तमेव भान्तमनुभाति सर्वं तस्य भासा सर्वमिदं विभाति ॥ I was stunne...
Read more

Nyāya Philosophy – The Indian System of Logic and Reasoning

-
  Nyāya Philosophy – The Indian System of Logic and Reasoning Nyāya is the backbone of Indian philosophical inquiry. Where Vedānta speaks of the Self and liberation, Nyāya shows how to think clearly, how to argue soundly, and how to distinguish truth from assumption. If Advaita is the final insight, Nyāya is the discipline that ensures the insight is genuine—not confusion dressed as realization. 1. What is Nyāya? Nyāya is one of the six classical Darśanas of Indian philosophy. The word Nyāya means method , rule , or more simply, logic . It is a system built not on mysticism or poetry, but on reason, observation, and structured analysis . Nyāya insists that truth must be demonstrated, not assumed. Its foundational text is the Nyāya Sūtra of Gautama (or Gautama Akṣapāda) . 2. Goal of Nyāya Nyāya is not logic for the sake of intellectual admiration. Its aim is practical and direct: To remove ignorance and suffering through right knowledge. False understanding leads to ...
Read more

Advaita Vedānta: The Vision of Absolute Non-Duality

-
  Advaita Vedānta: The Vision of Absolute Non-Duality Advaita Vedānta stands as one of the most refined and uncompromising philosophical systems in the Indian tradition. Its central declaration is simple, yet intellectually challenging: Reality is One. All multiplicity is appearance. The Self (Ātman) is identical with Brahman. This philosophy does not ask for emotional fascination or devotional intoxication. It demands clarity of understanding. It questions the very foundation of individuality and challenges the deep-rooted assumption that the world and the Self are separate. 1. What Advaita Means The Sanskrit term Advaita means “not two” . It is not a celebration of unity, but a negation of duality. Advaita does not claim the universe and God are similar — it claims they are not two distinct things to begin with. The Upaniṣads repeatedly articulate this non-duality: Tat Tvam Asi — Thou art That Aham Brahmāsmi — I am Brahman Sarvaṁ khalvidaṁ Brahma — All thi...
Read more

exp

-
Who Gives in India? Charity & CSR Mapping (FY 2023–24) Who Gives in India? Mapping Charity & CSR in FY 2023–24 Author: Shatabda Basu In the Indian civilisational context, social and charitable contribution has long been viewed as a measure of responsibility rather than mere prosperity. From early Vedic thought, where social obligation was articulated through ideas such as the pancha yajña , to later religious and community traditions, giving has been culturally valued alongside earning. What follows is a carefully compiled snapshot of India’s organised charitable and CSR landscape for FY 2023–24. All figures have been cross-checked against publicly available annual reports and income–expenditure statements, with the aim of placing authentic, comparable numbers in one place. This work is intended as a factual baseline —not a celebration list—from which sharper questions about scale, structur...
Read more