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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED RESEARCH IN COMMERCE, MANAGEMENT & SOCIAL SCIENCE (IJARCMSS) [ Vol. 9 | No. 3 (I) | July - September, 2026 ]

Corporate Social Responsibility Expenditure under India's Mandatory CSR Regime: A Comparative and Statistical Analysis of Leading Pharmaceutical Companies

Honey Panchal & Dr. Naishal Raval

Purpose: This paper examines the dimension, trend, and inter-firm variability of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure among leading Indian pharmaceutical companies across the first full decade of the mandatory CSR regime introduced under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013.

Methodology: The study formulates on secondary data hand-collected from the audited annual reports and CSR disclosures of five pharmaceutical companies selected through purposive (judgemental) sampling on the basis of market capitalisation — Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Divi's Laboratories Ltd, Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Cipla Ltd, and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd — for the ten financial years from 2015–16 to 2024–25. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, standard deviation, variance, skewness and kurtosis) and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) are used to test whether the mean CSR expenditure differs significantly across the sample firms.

Findings: CSR expenditure rose for every sample firm over the study period, while the pace and stability of growth diverged considerably. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd recorded the highest mean expenditure (₹45.79 crore), followed by Cipla Ltd (₹40.96 crore), Divi's Laboratories Ltd (₹31.88 crore), Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd (₹21.09 crore) and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (₹19.84 crore). The one-way ANOVA (F = 4.502, p = 0.0038) rejects the null hypothesis of equality of means at the 5 percent level of significance, confirming that CSR spending among the sampled firms is statistically non-uniform.

Originality: By covering the complete first post-mandate decade for a sector with a direct bearing on public-health outcomes, the study provides sector-specific comparative evidence that complements the largely cross-industry Indian CSR literature, offering an empirical benchmark for regulators, CSR committees, and institutional investors.

 

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