Green neglect: Agro forestry, wildlife get pennies in T’s CSR spend

Hyderabad: Even as Telangana confronts intensifying water stress, land degradation and biodiversity loss, corporate spending meant to address precisely such challenges remains strikingly thin.Agro forestry, conservation of natural resources and animal welfare together account for barely 2 per cent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) expenditure in the state over the last five financial years, underscoring a deep disconnect between ecological urgency and corporate priorities.
The anomaly is especially telling in the backdrop of a landmark Supreme Court judgment delivered in Dec 2025, which fundamentally reframed CSR obligations. The apex court ruled that CSR is not a matter of corporate charity but flows from a constitutional duty to protect the environment, interpreting Article 51A(g) to hold companies, as legal persons, responsible for safeguarding nature and wildlife. By reinforcing the ‘polluter pays' principle, the court directed corporate resources towards ecological restoration, including for endangered species such as the great Indian bustard, firmly anchoring environmental spending in legal responsibility rather than voluntary philanthropy. Ground realityYet, official data paints a different picture on the ground. According to figures tabled in the Lok Sabha, companies operating in Telangana spent Rs 3,857.62 crore on CSR between FY 2019-20 and FY 2023-24 under disclosures mandated by the Companies Act. Of this, agro forestry received just Rs 5.13 crore, conservation of natural resources Rs 57.08 crore, and animal welfare Rs 17.71 crore. Combined, these critical ecological sectors drew Rs 79.92 crore — only 2.07 percent of total CSR spending — highlighting a persistent tilt towards socially visible but environmentally limited interventions. The imbalance is stark given the state's mounting ecological pressures, experts said. Agro forestry, widely recognised as a low cost, high impact tool for climate adaptation, farmer income stabilisation and carbon sequestration, has remained particularly neglected. Over five years, annual CSR spending on agro forestry never crossed Rs 1.50 crore, peaking at Rs 1.44 crore in FY 2021-22. In FY 2023-24, it accounted for a mere 0.13 per cent of that year's CSR outlay of Rs 1,054.92 crore. No sustained effortsConservation of natural resources shows a similar pattern of episodic attention without sustained prioritisation. Allocations rose to Rs 27.47 crore in FY 2022-23, amid heightened water security concerns, but fell sharply by nearly 45 per cent to Rs 15.08 crore in FY 2023-24. Even at its peak, conservation spending formed only 2.64 per cent of annual CSR expenditure. Over five years, average annual spending stood at about Rs 11.4 crore, modest for a state heavily dependent on groundwater and rain-fed agriculture. Animal welfare has remained consistently marginal. Spending rose from Rs 1.53 crore in FY 2019-20 to around Rs 4 crore annually thereafter, yet never exceeded 0.6 per cent of total CSR spending in any single year, even as urban local bodies struggle with stray animal populations and rural areas face climate-stressed livestock systems. Edn dominates CSRIn sharp contrast, education and healthcare continue to dominate CSR portfolios. Education alone absorbed Rs 1,337.62 crore over five years — nearly 35 per cent of total CSR spending — while healthcare received Rs 871.95 crore. Even smaller social categories cumulatively attracted more funding than agro forestry, underscoring how environmental action, despite legal and ecological imperatives, remains peripheral in corporate boardroom calculations.