Can donation of money to a trust by a company be treated as CSR expenditure of the company?

Question

Can CSR be done in kind ? i.e. If a company is in the business of publications of books whether it can donate books for the purpose of CSR ?

Answer 1

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has vide General Circular No. 21/2014 dated June 18, 2014 has clarified that Contribution to Corpus of a Trust/ Society/ Section 8 companies etc. will qualify as CSR expenditure as long as
(a) the Trust/ Society/ Section 8 company etc. is created exclusively for undertaking CSR activities or
(b) where the corpus is created exclusively for a purpose directly relatable to a subject covered in Schedule VII of the Act