Stressed assets constrain SBI from spending more on CSR

SBI chief says banking major will take up digital village initiative on a larger scale

Hyderabad: State Bank of India (SBI) Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya on Thursday said that SBI had restricted its spending on corporate social responsibility (CSR) to one per cent of the annual profit as the banking regulator Reserve Bank of India “feels that it’s necessary for us (banks) to continue to spend only one per cent (of the profit) on CSR as there is a lot of stress in the banking sector”.

“SBI has been spending one per cent of its profit on the CSR activities since 1973.However, the current Companies Act mandates spending of two per cent of a company profits on CSR. But as SBI is a statutory corporation incorporated through an Act of Parliament, we continue to be outside the ambit of the Companies Act,” the SBI chief told the media here after donating ophthalmic equipment sponsored by the bank to L V Prasad Eye Institute here. During the fiscal 2015-16, the bank had spent Rs 143.92 crore under CSR.

She further said that the RBI wanted banks to continue with the allocation of one per cent of the net profit for the CSR activities as the banking sector was currently under a lot of stress. “Going forward as things look up, I am sure we are allowed to hike the CSR spend to two per cent (of the net profit),” she observed.

On the CSR activities taken up by SBI, she said the bank was focusing on health, education, livelihood creation, differently-abled persons and sustainability. Besides, the bank has taken up an initiative aimed at turning villages into digital villages. “Under this, we are trying to create a Wi-Fi environment and hotspots in the villages so that people can access internet. We also teach people how to use services offered on the bank’s digital platform so that there are less cash transactions in the society,” Ms Bhattacharya said.

The bank has turned 21 villages, including three in Telangana, into digital villages. “Our objective is to implement the programme in 100 villages by March 2017. We will take a bigger target next year,” she said. Recently, the bank behemoth in association with software major Oracle launched an initiative to improve computer literacy among school children. “We will take up this programme in two schools in Hyderabad and Bangalore initially on a pilot basis before expanding it to 100 more schools,” she said.

Donates 1.15-cr equipment to LVPEI

State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, donated Rs 1.15 crore towards ophthalmic equipment for non-paying patients and surgery equipment for an operation theatre at L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI). On this occasion, SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya on Thursday inaugurated the new facilities at the eye institute. She lauded the institute’s services in the area of eye care covering the whole gamut of basic eye care, clinical research on eye diseases, training, product development and rehabilitation for those with incurable visual disability.

Dr Gullapalli N Rao, Founder and Chair, LVPEI, said: “The generosity of our friends and supporters continue to grow, making it possible for us to offer state-of-the-art treatment to all our patients, irrespective of their social strata. We convey our deepest sense of appreciation to the SBI Group for making this generous contribution”. Globally, 285 million people are visually-impaired, of whom nearly 40 million are blind, he added.