Jal4All ·
Water is one of the clearest fits for CSR in India. Here is what the rules say, in plain language. This is general information, not legal advice: check the specifics with your CSR committee and advisers.
It is named in the law
Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 lists the activities a company's CSR can cover. Two items speak directly to water:
- Item (i): promoting health care, including preventive health care and sanitation, and making available safe drinking water.
- Item (iv): ensuring environmental sustainability, including conservation of natural resources and maintaining the quality of soil, air and water.
Drinking water points, wells and borewells, pumps, storage, and pond and tank revival can all be designed to fit these items.
Sponsorship for marketing is not CSR
The Companies (CSR Policy) Amendment Rules, 2021 exclude activities supported on a sponsorship basis for deriving marketing benefits for the company's products or services. So a water carton carrying your brand, handed out to promote that brand, is marketing spend. A CSR water project should carry no brand promotion beyond a simple acknowledgement.
How projects are implemented
A company can carry out its CSR projects itself, or through implementing agencies such as Section 8 companies, registered trusts and societies. Implementing agencies register with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs through Form CSR-1. Your CSR policy and committee decide which route a project takes.
Working with an execution partner
Most CSR teams do not want to manage borewell contractors, pump vendors, panchayat permissions and water testing themselves. An execution partner takes the project end to end and gives the CSR team one point of accountability: a scope and budget the committee can approve, milestone-wise updates, and a utilisation certificate and completion report at the end.
The Jal4All Foundation works this way: you fund the project, we execute it on the ground, and every project appears in our public impact log.
What a good water project looks like
Whatever the route, a project should have a real need behind it, the permissions in place, a named owner for the asset, a maintenance plan, water testing where relevant, and a report with photos, location and costs against budget. That is the standard we hold ourselves to.