Four fiscals after being made mandatory, corporate altruism has hit a few laudatory milestones.

Cumulative spending topped Rs 50,000 crore last fiscal, including Rs 34,000 crore by listed companies and nearly Rs 19,000 crore by the unlisted ones.

That’s two-thirds of the fiscal 2018 Union Budget allocation for education, and a little more than that for health and family welfare – also the two key Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spending heads.

Overall, 1,913 companies met the eligibility criteria, of which, 667 were unable to spend for various reasons. Of the balance 1,246, over two-thirds spent 2% or more of their profits, compared with 57% in fiscal 2017. And 12%, or 153 companies, spent 3% or more.

Interestingly, the on-year growth in spending on CSR by our select set was the same as the on-year growth inits profit – at 12%.

Large companies continued to hog the credit, both in the public and private sectors.

Energy companies opened the purse widest, with 51 of them spending Rs 2,253 crore, or 23% of the overall spending, followed by manufacturing, financial services and information technology services.

Among the states, CSR spend by company was the highest in the National Capital Territory, closely followed by Karnataka and Maharashtra.

As for the spending heads, while education & skill development and healthcare & sanitation remained on top, national heritage protection and promotion of sports emerged as two areas that have grown by leaps and bounds since fiscal 2015.