During the year 2014-15, HUL spent Rs 4651
lakhs (56.48 per cent of total CSR spending of Rs 8235 lakhs) on project
Shakti.
HUL describes the project Shakti in its website as follows:
“HUL provides training on basic accounting,
selling skills, health & hygiene and relevant IT skills to Shakti
entrepreneurs and equips them with smart phones which have been enabled with a
mini Enterprise Resource Package (ERP) which helps them to run their business
efficiently and further augment their income. HUL has trained thousands of
Shakti Ammas across the villages in a bid to develop an entrepreneurial mindset
and make them financially independent and more empowered.
In 2010, the Shakti programme was extended
to include ‘Shaktimaans’ who are typically the husbands or brothers of the
Shakti Ammas. Shaktimaans complement our Shakti Ammas. They sell products on
bicycles in surrounding villages, covering a larger area than Shakti Ammas can
cover on foot.
Today, Project Shakti provides
livelihood-enhancing opportunities to over 70,000 Shakti Entrepreneurs who
distribute our productions in more than 165,000 villages and reach over four
million rural households. There are 48,000 Shaktimaans across India.
HUL’s Project Shakti has become the model
to reach out to rural consumers in developing and emerging markets and enabled
Unilever to tap opportunity at the bottom of the pyramid.”
Shakti Ammas and Shaktimaans constitute direct rural distribution channel of HUL. Is it appropriate to classify spending on project Shakti as CSR spending?
The empowerment of rural women and men is positive externality created from the HUL's activity of distributing its products at the bottom of the pyramid. Whether the spending should be classified as CSR spending is a contentious issue.
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