A Study on the Provisions of Companies Act 2013 Related to Corporate Social Responsibility of Pharmaceuticals Companies Listed in Bombay Stock Exchange

Any business organisation is a part of the society and it operates within a society and for the benefit of a society as a whole. Its main objective is to earn profit but this cannot be fulfilled without the contribution from the society itself. Therefore, businesses who are accumulators of wealth in any economy are not only responsible towards their direct stakeholders only but also to the common people and environment as a whole. In light of this fact, this paper tries to explore brief history of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in India by focussing on the current development in such practices by basically focussing on the period after 2010. It also studies the activities undertaken by selected pharmaceutical companies and their compliance to the provisions of Companies Act 2013 in that regard. The CSR practices adopted by a total of thirty five pharmaceutical companies selected on the basis of their net profit, listed on BSE has been analysed and it was found that 1.58 percent of the average profits of the three years have been invested in CSR projects as against the required 2 percent.