Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry organized a one-day workshop on “CSR: New Avenues for Social Development” on April 18, 2014 at GCCI. In his welcome address, Shri Bimal Parikh, Hon. Secretary, GCCI, applauded the new CSR mandate on corporates towards social welfare under the Companies Act, 2013. Shri Rohit Shah, Chairman, GCCI CSR Committee in his theme address explained that the objective of the workshop was to provide a platform to the NGO’s and corporates and facilitate the new arena of social development under the new regime of mandatory CSR in Companies Act, 2013.

Shri Akshai Aggrawal, Vice Chancellor, GTU shared various efforts done by GTU at university level to promote business ethics and CSR. Shri Sunil Parekh, Strategic Advisor, Zydus Cadila and Jubiliant Energy, highlighted that the new legislation will lead to a paradigm shift of CSR from “cheque writing” or “charity” activity to “responsibility of society” Shri P. K. Laheri, IAS (R), explained the need of increasing mutual trust and cooperation between NGO’s and corporates so that the objective of including CSR in the Companies Act is achieved and the benefits to society can be percolated.

Ms. Madhuri Lele, Project Director, Service N Solutions, Mumbai, in her address on Capacity Building of NGOs emphasized that the new legislation will demand more transparency, credibility and accountability on the part of NGO’s in order to get identified for corporate funding. Shri Bhushan Punani, Executive Director, Blind People’s Association, explained various methods of efficient reporting structure and governance models for the NGO’s, which will help them to meet the statutory requirements under the new Act. In the session on “Experience Sharing: Successful Corporate – NGO Partnership”, Mr. MPS Tomar from ONGC, Mr. Anomitra Das from TCS, Mr. Ganpat Chaudhary from Roquette Riddhi Siddhi Pvt Ltd and Mr. Rajendra Mankodi from SBI underlined various activities done by the corporates in the area of social upliftment.

CA Dhinal Shah and CA Vinod Modha explained with minute intricacies about the provisions and legal aspects of CSR under the new Act. The workshop concluded with questions from participants, networking between NGO’s and corporates, and Vote of Thanks by Ms. Anar Patel, Co-Chairperson, CSR Committee, GCCI.