Moa Jamir
The State Government machinery seems to be excited about a scheduled event next week. At the meeting of top honchos of various departments of Nagaland on June 28, Chief Secretary Nagaland, J Alam reportedly announced that the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be attending the Nagaland CSR & Investment Conclave 2022 scheduled to be held from July 4-5. Noting that the conclave was a first-of-its-kind in Nagaland, the State's top bureaucrat reminded all government departments to give full attention to the success of the programme, the State’s public relations office informed.
Also attending the meeting, it was informed that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Investment and Development Authority of Nagaland (IDAN) told the officers that the conclave “was one step towards the many positive changes coming to the State.” Further noting that various corporate companies have shown their interest in investing in Nagaland and expect fruitful participation, the CEO made a similar appeal for cooperation and support from the gathered officers. While the media release from DIPR did not elaborate, it is understood that it is an investment and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) conclave to be attended by top corporate as well as top decision-makers from both government and private sectors of the country.
The scheduled event is indeed significant and welcomed, and the palpable ‘excitement’ is fathomable. However, two issues regarding the conclave is worth noting to go forward as Nagaland strives to secure ‘funds’ – both investment and CSR wise.
Firstly, how effective has the IDAN— created in 2018 as the State's investment promotion agency, as per its social media profiles— been in achieving its objective so far. For starters, the designated agency for securing funds from outside does not appear to have even a website – imperative to give information to the general public about its activities, and most crucially for others to look for investment opportunities in the State.
Neither on Twitter nor Facebook, a website linked to the Agency is given. On LinkedIn, it claimed to be the notified Investment Promotion Agency to “facilitate creation of investment opportunities and to explore all possible funding/investment opportunities for infrastructure and socio-economic development of the State,” but a website linked to the profile was unreachable when last accessed.
Is the negligible CSR activities in the State, the second concern regarding the conclave? While such a correlation seems unreasonable, causal linkages cannot be ruled out.
For instance, as per the state-wise data provided by the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) in the Rajya Sabha in April, with a measly amount of Rs 2.98 crore out of total Rs 20,260.25 crore expenditure across India, Nagaland received just 0.1% of the funds spent by companies under the CSR activities for the financial year 2020-21, the Rajya Sabha was informed recently. The MCA data in April further highlighted that in the last six fiscals, CSR spending in Nagaland was just Rs 13.5 crore, though it showed an increasing trend from 2016-17 to 2019-20.
The data, based on the National CSR Data Portal, established as a platform by the MCA to “disseminate CSR-related data and information filed by the companies registered with it,” was up to December 31, 2021. A quick perusal of the latest data on the portal on June 29 put the figure for 2020-21 at Rs 3 crore.
While CSR activities in the North-East as a whole are low, except for Assam, receiving the bulk share (Rs 150.78 crore or 76.77%) out of just Rs 196.39 crore in the eight states, a little more proactiveness would not hurt. An active website in the public domain is the first crucial step. Perhaps, the scheduled conclave would be a pertinent intervention.
For any comment, drop a line to jamir.moa@gmail.com.
