In a serious bid to attract contributions from corporates to tackle the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Maharashtra Government on Tuesday has set up the Maharashtra State Disaster Management Authority.
The corporates can now contribute from their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Fund towards the Maharashtra State Disaster Management Authority.
The corporates can send in their contributions on account number 39265578866 of the State Bank of India’s Colaba branch.
Along with contributing to the PM-CARES Fund set up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the corporates can also send their contributions to the state’s Maharashtra State Disaster Management Authority.
To the uninitiated, companies with a net profit of Rs 5 crore or a net worth of Rs 500 crore or a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore have to spend 2 per cent of their average net profits of the last three years as CSR.
Earlier, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) had said that the contributions made by the Corporates to the ‘Chief Minister’s Relief Fund’ or ‘State Relief Fund’ does not count CSR.
In the COVID-19 related FAQs released by MCA on CSR, it had said that the contributions made to ‘PM-CARES Fund’ shall qualify as CSR expenditure under item no (viii) of Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013. However, it further said that ‘Chief Minister’s Relief Fund’ or ‘State Relief Fund for COVID-19′ is not included in the Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 and therefore any contribution to such funds shall not qualify as admissable CSR expenditure.