CSR for gender equality, older people and inclusion

Yes: CSR can fund women’s empowerment, gender equality, homes and hostels for women and orphans, care for older people and work with communities that face discrimination, because item (iii) of Schedule VII covers all of them. Disability inclusion is covered too, mainly through items (ii) and (iii). Yet this is one of the least funded parts of the list.

Schedule VII is the part of the Companies Act, 2013 that lists what CSR money can be spent on, in thirteen items (Schedule VII at a glance has them all). This guide, for CSR teams and for NGOs working with women, children, older people, people with disabilities and marginalised communities, explains what item (iii) says, what qualifies, how the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has settled the grey areas, what doesn’t count and what good practice looks like.

What item (iii) says

In plain words, the item has four strands:

• Gender equality and women’s empowerment: women’s incomes, skills, leadership, rights and safety, and changing the norms that hold women and girls back.
• Homes and hostels for women and orphans: working women’s hostels, shelters for women in distress and homes for children without parental care.
• Facilities for senior citizens: old age homes, day care centres “and such other facilities”, such as dementia care or home-based care.
• Reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups.

The MCA’s CSR FAQs (General Circular 14/2021, 25 August 2021), cited here as “FAQ” and a number, are the Ministry’s view of the law rather than the law itself, but companies and their auditors work to them. FAQ 3.13 asks for Schedule VII to be “interpreted liberally to capture the essence of the subjects”.

Schedule VII doesn’t define “socially and economically backward groups”, so the board decides, reading the words liberally. Evidence of disadvantage makes the choice easy to defend: caste or tribe, disability, gender identity, migration, extreme poverty. Record the evidence in the project file.

Disability inclusion

No single item is about disability, but three reach it. Item (ii) names special education and vocational skills “especially among ... the differently abled”. Item (i) covers health care, including rehabilitation and therapy. Item (iii) covers reducing inequalities. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, which recognises 21 kinds of disability, is the framework to design around.

How much CSR goes to item (iii)

Of the National CSR Portal’s 29 or so “development sectors”, which are reporting categories rather than Schedule VII items, six match item (iii).

Together they came to ₹1,091.90 crore in 2023-24, about 3% of the ₹34,908.75 crore companies spent on CSR. Special education, under item (ii), added ₹396.57 crore (PIB, 25 March 2026). Spending on gender equality and on older people roughly doubled in two years and women’s empowerment rose by about 70%, while spending on homes and hostels for women fell by more than half.

Projects that clearly qualify

Grey areas, and how the FAQs settle them

Programmes for the company’s own women staff

Activities benefiting the company’s employees are excluded by Rule 2(1)(d)(iv) of the CSR Rules. Under FAQ 4.2, an activity “designed exclusively for the benefit of employees” doesn’t count, while one designed for the public still counts when employees are “incidental beneficiaries”. A leadership course for the company’s own women managers is a staff programme. A working women’s hostel open to all working women in an industrial area, with places allocated by need, counts even if some residents work for the funder.

Compliance the law already requires

Rule 2(1)(d)(vi) excludes activities carried out to meet any other statutory obligation. Running the Internal Committee and awareness sessions that the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (the POSH Act) requires in the company’s own workplaces is compliance, not CSR. So is a crèche that labour law requires for its own staff. For how the POSH Act works, see POSH for NGOs.

Homes for the company’s own retirees

FAQ 4.2 adds that a CSR activity “should be non-discriminatory to any class of beneficiaries”. A home reserved for the company’s former staff is hard to defend as CSR. An old age home open to any older person who needs it, with clear admission rules, is exactly what item (iii) describes.

Targeting particular groups

Item (iii) itself directs CSR to groups that face inequality, so a project for Scheduled Tribe girls, women farmers or transgender persons follows the law. What FAQ 4.2 warns against is an activity designed for a closed group connected to the company, such as its employees.

Buildings and running costs

Hostels, homes and day care centres are capital assets. Under Rule 7(4) they must be held by a Section 8 company, registered public trust or registered society with charitable objects and a CSR registration number, by the project’s beneficiaries as self-help groups, collectives or entities, or by a public authority, never by the company. Homes cost money every year they run, so plan for that from the start: an ongoing project can last the year it starts plus three financial years, and after it ends the board may fund operation and maintenance as a separate project (FAQ 6.1). See capital assets in CSR.

What doesn’t count

What doesn’t count as CSR explains every exclusion. The ones that most often catch gender and inclusion projects are:

• Staff programmes and benefits: gender training for employees, staff hostels and crèches, maternity benefits.
• Statutory compliance, such as the POSH Act’s requirements for the company’s own workplaces.
• Normal business: buying from women-led suppliers is procurement, however welcome. A course open to all women entrepreneurs is CSR.
• Marketing: a brand campaign about “empowerment” is advertising, and sponsorship for marketing benefit is excluded (FAQ 4.3).
• Funds not named in Schedule VII (FAQ 3.16). Item (viii) includes central government funds for the welfare of women, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, other backward classes and minorities, but only funds the MCA notifies count (FAQ 3.15).
• Goods in kind and volunteering hours, which can’t be valued as CSR spending (FAQ 3.12 and 3.18).

Safeguarding and legal checks

Residential projects carry the highest risks. Before funding one, check:

• Children’s homes must be registered as child care institutions under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. The Act treats institutional care as a measure of last resort, so ask whether support for family-based care, such as sponsorship or foster care, would serve children better.
• Shelters for women should be run by organisations experienced in this work, linked to the One Stop Centres for women affected by violence that are set up under the Ministry of Women and Child Development’s Mission Shakti.
• Homes for older people should meet any registration or standards your state sets.
• Every partner needs a safeguarding policy, safe recruitment and a clear way to report concerns. See child protection and safeguarding.
• Never identify a survivor of violence or a child in care in photos, stories or reports. See consent, photos and dignity.

Good practice: need, partners and what to measure

Start from the data

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) tracks many indicators of women’s lives. NFHS-6 (2023-24) found that women with a bank or savings account they use themselves rose from 78.6% to 89.0% since NFHS-5, women who had ever used the internet from 33.3% to 64.3%, and women with a mobile phone they use from 53.9% to 63.6% (PIB, 29 May 2026). Access has grown fast; what women can do with it is the harder question. Use the district figures for the places you work, and talk to women themselves: see needs assessment.

Work with what exists

Build on SHGs formed under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, panchayats, anganwadi centres and district social welfare offices rather than starting parallel groups. FAQ 3.17 says CSR shouldn’t fill “resource gaps in Government Schemes”, so design programmes that complement public services instead of paying their running costs. See CSR and government schemes.

Measure changes in people’s lives

Break every result down by gender, age, caste and disability where you can do so safely: see choosing indicators.

For NGOs

• Lead with safeguarding. Registration under the JJ Act for children’s homes, a written policy, trained staff and a reporting route are what a careful company will ask about first.
• Show need and voice: district data, plus what women, older people or people with disabilities themselves say they need.
• Be eligible before you apply: a trust, society or Section 8 company with the required income-tax registrations and a CSR registration number, plus three years’ record of similar work if neither a company nor a government set you up. See how NGOs can get CSR funding.
• Report outcomes with dignity: numbers that show change, and stories told with consent and without identifying anyone at risk.

The Academy’s CSR Essentials course covers Schedule VII in depth, and The SDGs and India covers the goals on gender equality and inequality.