India’s CSR Spending: Where the Money Goes and What It Means for Health

India’s experiment with mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has quietly reshaped the country’s social development landscape over the last decade, directing tens of thousands of crores into education, environment, rural development and increasingly, health. Since the Companies Act, 2013 made CSR spending compulsory for large profit-making firms, India has created a unique model in which the private sector participates directly in addressing public needs often stepping into gaps where government systems remain stretched.

CSR spending has grown sharply from around ₹10,000 crore in 2014–15 to more than ₹34,000 crore in 2023–24, an increase of nearly three and a half times. Health has emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries. In the financial year 2021–22, companies spent more than ₹7,700 crore specifically on health-related activities, making it the second-largest CSR category after education. In 2023–24, education and health together accounted for over 55% of all CSR expenditure, signalling a clear trend: corporate India sees healthcare as both an urgent need and a high-impact investment.

On the ground, these funds have translated into a variety of initiatives that supplement public healthcare systems. In Karnataka’s Mandya district, CSR contributions helped equip over 50 Primary Health Centres with ECG machines and basic dental equipment, strengthening diagnostic capacity in rural areas. In Andhra Pradesh, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) committed ₹48 crore to install advanced radiation therapy machines in government hospitals, expanding access to cancer care for low-income families. In Patna, the Indian Oil Corporation funded a paediatric oncology ward, modular operation theatres and a robotic physiotherapy unit at IGIMS, significantly upgrading the hospital’s ability to provide specialised services.

These interventions, though varied in scale, highlight how CSR often fills critical infrastructure and service gaps sometimes faster than government budgets can. During the Covid-19 pandemic, for instance, corporate funds played a visible role in setting up oxygen generation plants, donating concentrators and supporting testing facilities at a time when health systems were overwhelmed.

Yet the distribution and impact of CSR spending remain uneven. Approximately 60% of all CSR money goes to just six states, mostly industrialised ones, leaving poorer and harder-to-reach regions with fewer resources despite greater need. Many CSR health projects remain short-term or donation-driven focusing on equipment, buildings or one-off health camps rather than long-term system strengthening. Without trained staff or maintenance budgets, even donated devices risk becoming underused or non-functional. Preventive health, which has the greatest potential to reduce disease burden, receives comparatively less attention because it is harder to measure and less visible than infrastructure projects.

Experts argue that for CSR to truly strengthen public health, companies must move from symbolic gestures to sustained, evidence-based interventions. This means aligning projects with district health plans, investing in primary care, supporting the health workforce and ensuring that high-need states receive fair attention. A shift towards long-term partnerships rather than photo-friendly donations, could significantly improve health equity and outcomes.

A decade after India mandated CSR, the country now stands at a crossroads. Corporate spending has the financial potential to transform parts of the health system, but the question remains whether that spending is strategic, equitable and sustainable. If CSR continues to grow but remains concentrated in already developed states or focuses mainly on one-time infrastructure, its impact will remain limited. But if companies choose to use CSR as a tool for genuine public health strengthening, it may become one of the most powerful levers India has to close healthcare gaps.

Corporate India has shown that it can fund healthcare. The next step is ensuring that the funding genuinely creates healthier communities not just healthier balance sheets.