The 5th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility 2025 was organised by the Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna (CIMP) under the auspices of the CIMP Centre for CSR & ESG Studies Foundation in association with UNICEF and the School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad. Policymakers, academics, business executives, development professionals, and students came together for the conference to examine new avenues for impact-driven and socially conscious corporate social responsibility in Bihar.

In his introductory remarks, Professor Rana Singh, Director of CIMP, described how CSR spending in India has changed over time, from an initial projection of Rs 20,000 crore to almost Rs 2 lakh crore by 2020. He also underlined the necessity of moving away from chequebook philanthropy and towards evidence-based, outcome-focused interventions that are in line with Bihar’s priorities. In his keynote address, Axis Bank Chair Professor Dr Indranil De described corporate social responsibility (CSR) as the second-best way for private companies to support public goods in situations where governmental capacity is constrained. He emphasised how corporate social responsibility (CSR) connects business success with the well-being of citizens by allocating funds for livelihoods, environmental sustainability, health, sanitation, and education. In order to preserve credibility, he emphasised the necessity of openness, oversight, and independent assessments.

Ms Margaret Gwada, a UNICEF official, commended Bihar’s developing governance environment and urged further cooperation between the public sector, private sector, and civil society. She suggested using Bihar as a model for child-centric CSR innovation and emphasised UNICEF’s community-based and sanitation programmes.

Through multi-stakeholder collaborations, Dr Hishmi Jamil Hussain emphasised the significance of CSR in guaranteeing essential rights, including clean water, dignity, and health. Lakshman Kumar of NABARD described CSR initiatives in the areas of entrepreneurship, health, education, water, and climate resilience that are carried out through 43 partners and almost 300 projects that have been sponsored with more than Rs 2,000 crore. He underlined how important it is to address Bihar’s CSR location bias.

Bihar only receives 1% of national CSR funds, according to policy expert Mathew Cherian, who also linked CSR to the SDGs and emphasised the importance of sustainability, aspirational districts, and doing no harm.

CSR is a “bloodless revolution” that is based on a triangular architecture of corporations, civil society, and government, according to Dr Bhaskar Chatterjee, the architect of India’s CSR framework, who made this statement in a special address. He emphasised that Bihar is becoming a more significant contributor to India’s current CSR mobilisation of Rs 35,000 crore from 28,000 enterprises, which is expected to reach Rs 1 lakh crore by 2035. Additionally, officials from Palladium India, Apollo Medskills, TERI, ICICI Foundation, Dulux Paints, WABTEC, and Nalanda Charitable Trust participated in a CSR Roundtable on the recently gazetted Bihar CSR Policy. This was followed by the presentation of more than fifteen research papers from academics throughout India.