CSR for heritage, art, culture and libraries

Yes: CSR can pay to restore historic buildings and works of art, set up public libraries and support traditional arts and crafts, because item (v) of Schedule VII covers national heritage, art and culture. At monuments that the government protects, though, the work companies can fund is tightly defined.

Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 lists the activities a company’s CSR policy may include, and item (v) is the one for heritage and culture. This guide, for CSR teams and for heritage, arts and library organisations, explains what it says, what qualifies, how CSR works at protected monuments, the grey areas and what doesn’t count. Schedule VII at a glance covers all thirteen items.

What item (v) says

In plain words, the item covers:

• Built heritage: conserving and restoring buildings and sites of historical importance, from monuments to old stepwells and historic town quarters.
• Works of art: conserving paintings, murals, sculpture, manuscripts and other objects.
• Art and culture more widely: music, dance, theatre and other living traditions, and the people who keep them going.
• Public libraries: setting them up, open to everyone.
• Traditional arts and handicrafts: artisans’ skills, design, tools, markets and incomes.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has answered common CSR questions in its FAQs (General Circular 14/2021, 25 August 2021), cited here as “FAQ” and a number. They carry the Ministry’s reading of the law rather than the force of law, but companies and auditors rely on them. FAQ 3.13 says Schedule VII “must be interpreted liberally to capture the essence of the subjects”. And FAQ 3.9, on the preference the Act gives to the areas where a company operates, notes that activities such as “art and culture” “transcend geographical boundaries”, so a company can support heritage far from its plants.

How much CSR goes to heritage, art and culture

The National CSR Portal reports this item under a single “art and culture” line: ₹260.39 crore in 2021-22, ₹449.21 crore in 2022-23 and ₹704.04 crore in 2023-24, about 2% of the ₹34,908.75 crore companies spent on CSR that year (PIB, 25 March 2026). Spending on it grew 2.7 times in two years, much faster than CSR as a whole.

Projects that clearly qualify

A school library fits item (ii) on education as well as item (v): record whichever matches the project’s main purpose.

Working at protected monuments

India protects its most important heritage under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, which lets the government declare monuments protected and regulate construction in the areas around them. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) looks after 3,686 centrally protected monuments (PIB, 18 April 2026). Monuments not of national importance are the states’ responsibility, through state archaeology departments.

At centrally protected monuments, conservation and preservation “remain the exclusive mandate of the ASI” (PIB, 18 April 2026). There are two main routes for companies:

• Adopt a Heritage 2.0. Launched on 4 September 2023 as a revamp of a 2017 scheme, it invites companies to use CSR funds to develop, provide and maintain amenities at protected monuments, in four categories: hygiene, accessibility, safety and knowledge. A company selected becomes a “Monument Mitra” for an initial term of five years, which may be extended by up to five years. Monuments and the amenities they need are listed on the indianheritage.gov.in portal (PIB, 31 August 2023).
• The National Culture Fund. The Ministry of Culture says conservation of protected monuments and sites is also taken up through the National Culture Fund “to encourage the private participation” (PIB, 11 August 2025). The fund isn’t one of those named in Schedule VII, and FAQ 3.16 says contributions to other funds aren’t admissible, so treat support through it as an item (v) project rather than a fund contribution: agree the site and the work in writing, check how the money will be used and reported, and take advice.

Permissions for photography, filming and development work at monuments go through the ASI’s e-permission portal (PIB, 31 August 2023). For state-protected and unprotected heritage, agree the work in writing with the state archaeology department, the owner and, where there is one, the local heritage committee.

Grey areas, and how to handle them

Places of worship

Schedule VII protects heritage; it says nothing about religion. The test is whether the work protects a building or site of historical importance, or promotes art and culture. Conserving the murals in a centuries-old temple, or restoring a historic mosque or church, can pass that test. Building a new place of worship, or paying for religious ceremonies, is hard to fit into any item. Record the site’s historical importance in the project file.

Festivals and events

Rule 2(1)(d)(v) excludes sponsorship for marketing benefit. FAQ 4.3 wants CSR run “in a project or programme mode rather than as a one-off event”, while accepting brand building “as a collateral benefit”. A year-round programme that trains young folk artists, with the company’s name in the credits, qualifies. Title sponsorship of a music festival in return for branding is sponsorship.

Privately owned heritage

CSR money spent restoring a building that belongs to a private family mainly benefits its owners. Unless the public gains lasting access and the restored asset is held by an eligible holder, it is hard to defend. Rule 7(4) of the CSR Rules says that a capital asset created with CSR money 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. See capital assets in CSR.

Libraries

The item says “public libraries”, so the library must be open to the public. A library in the company’s township for staff families is a staff benefit, which Rule 2(1)(d)(iv) excludes. The building, furniture and books are assets, so settle who holds them: often the municipality, the panchayat or a library society with a CSR registration number.

Crafts and the company’s own business

Training artisans, improving their designs and connecting them to markets is CSR. Buying their products is not: an order of handloom saris for dealers’ Diwali gifts is a purchase, paid at a fair price from the marketing budget. If the company runs its own crafts brand, work that mainly supplies that brand is part of its normal course of business, which Rule 2(1)(d)(i) excludes.

What doesn’t count

Every exclusion is explained in what doesn’t count as CSR. For heritage and culture, watch for:

• Sponsorship for marketing benefit: naming rights at festivals, concerts or exhibitions.
• The company’s own art and heritage: artworks for its offices, a museum about its own history, restoring its own old premises for business use.
• Purchases: craft products bought as gifts or merchandise.
• Heritage outside India, however closely linked to Indian culture.
• Contributions to funds not named in Schedule VII, the National Culture Fund among them, as a general donation (FAQ 3.16). Fund specific projects through an eligible agency instead.
• Volunteering hours and gifts in kind, which can’t be valued as CSR spending (FAQ 3.18 and 3.12).

Good practice: need, partners and what to measure

Heritage work needs specialists. Use trained conservation architects and conservators, document a site thoroughly before any work starts, and follow the approving agency’s standards. Bring local people in early: heritage that a community values and earns from is far more likely to be looked after.

For crafts, the aim is artisans’ incomes and the survival of the craft, not one-off exhibitions. Work with producer groups that the artisans own, keep design rights and the benefit of any geographical indication with the craftspeople, and build on government support for artisans, such as PM Vishwakarma, without paying a scheme’s own costs: FAQ 3.17 says CSR shouldn’t fill “resource gaps in Government Schemes”.

Big heritage projects often need more money than one company can give. Rule 4(4) lets companies collaborate if each reports its own share separately: see collaborating on CSR.

For NGOs

• Show the permissions: who owns the site, who has approved the work, and who will maintain it.
• Bring the expertise: named conservators or craft designers, and a record of similar work.
• Show what the community gains: access, livelihoods, pride and upkeep plans.
• Meet the basic conditions first: a CSR registration number from Form CSR-1, the legal form and income-tax registrations the Rules require and, unless a company or a government set you up, a three-year track record in similar work. See how NGOs can get CSR funding.
• Tell the story well. Heritage and craft projects make good stories; tell them with the artisans’ consent and in their own words.

The Academy’s CSR Essentials course covers Schedule VII and the exclusions in depth.