Companies have spent over two lakh crore rupees on CSR since 2014.
This index sets each district's share against its poverty.
Larger Indian companies must spend part of their profits on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and report where the money went. The CSR Opportunity Index compares the spending reported for each district with the share of its people in poverty, and it calls a district a whitespace district when its spending per person is in the bottom quarter of all districts and its poverty is in the top quarter.
Recorded CSR spending per person tends to be lower where poverty is higher.
The index sets the CSR spending reported to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs against NITI Aayog's poverty headcount in each of 651 districts. Across districts the pattern is loose, but between states the difference can be very large.
Bihar's poverty headcount is more than four times Maharashtra's, yet Maharashtra received about 20 times as much CSR per person.
How the index works
A district's score depends on the sector and the weights chosen in the first two steps, and the ranking and the research briefs follow from that score.
Sector
The index can be scored on all CSR spending or on one of ten sectors, such as education, health care or sanitation. With a sector chosen, the funding gap is calculated from that sector's spending alone, so a district with no spending in it gets the largest possible gap, while poverty and persistence stay as they are.
Weights
The score combines poverty, the funding gap and persistence, each with its own weight. You can move the sliders to weight them differently, or choose one of the presets.
Ranking
Every scored district is listed by its score, highest first, and the order updates as the weights change. Clicking a state on the map lists only that state's districts.
Research brief
Clicking a district opens a short research brief on it, which you can download as a PDF.
District rankings
Districts at the top of the ranking combine high poverty with little recorded CSR spending. You can change the weights or score a single CSR sector, and clicking a state on the map lists only its districts.
With the default weights and all sectors, scores run from 0 to 81.2. Choosing a sector recalculates the funding gap from that sector's spending alone, and a district with no CSR spending in the sector gets the largest possible gap, so scores can reach about 85.5.
The text of each research brief is written by a language model from the district's figures, so it should be checked against them before it is quoted.
Source: NITI Aayog MPI 2023; Ministry of Corporate Affairs CSR filings via Dataful.in; Census 2011
Score settings
Sector and weights
The share of people who were multidimensionally poor in 2019-21, from NITI Aayog's MPI 2023. A higher share raises the score.
How far CSR spending per person falls below the median for districts of similar population. A larger gap raises the score.
The 2019-21 poverty headcount divided by the 2015-16 one. A value near or above 1.0 means poverty has not fallen.
Presets
Average score by state
Selecting a state lists only its districts
District ranking
0 districts
Findings from the index
The first finding concerns CSR spending that cannot be placed in any district, and the other two concern how unevenly the rest is shared between places.
The same method can be applied to other district data.
Previews of indexes for health, energy and education are on this site. They run on placeholder numbers until real district data and a written method are in place.
We send one short email when a new index or report is published.