Reliance Industries’s CSR spend in FY22 at Rs 1,185 crore

Reliance Industries (RIL) spent Rs 1,184.93 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2022 for corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is being undertaken by its philanthropic arm Reliance Foundation. The company helmed by billionaire Mukesh Ambani had topped the charts for CSR expenditure in FY21, by spending about Rs 922 crore.

Reliance Foundation, headed by founder and chairperson Nita Ambani, works in fields such as rural transformation, health, education, disaster response and sports, among others. The reporting year’s CSR spend included initiatives for oxygen delivery during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and supporting a number of need-based, impactful CSR initiatives.

The Covid-19 response was rolled out through five missions, including ‘Mission Oxygen’ and ‘Mission Vaccine Suraksha’, among others, while its expenses also included initiatives through other missions such as ‘Mission Anna Seva’, ‘Mission Covid Infra’ and ‘Mission Employee Care’.

RIL produced 1,000 tonne of oxygen every day during the second wave and supplied it free to 100,000 patients across various states. The oxygen, which contributed to 11% of India’s total production of medical-grade liquid oxygen, was produced at its Jamnagar facility.

Though RIL is not a manufacturer of medical-grade liquid oxygen, it became India’s largest producer of the life-saving resource from a single location during the country’s hour of need.

Besides, it enhanced India’s Covid-testing capabilities by developing its own confirmatory tests, with the capacity of over 15,000 daily tests. RIL had also set up a 2,000-bed hospital for Covid care, distributed more than 85 million meals and provided 2.7 million litres of fuel for emergency response vehicles, among others.

In the education space, it had set up a Jio Institute campus at Ulwe in Navi Mumbai in about 52 acres, which will commence its academic sessions in 2022.

The company also reached 21.5 million youth and children through different sports initiatives since the inception of the foundation.

Under its rural initiative, it created 12.1 million cubic metres of water-harvesting capacity, assuring irrigation to over 5,600 hectares of land for at least two cropping seasons. It also helped 10,896 rural households meet nutritional needs and trained 22,000 members of self-help groups.