Outgoing corporate affairs minister Murli Deora, known as top fund raiser for Congress in Mumbai, has stirred up the corporate world with an official demand to chip in donations for philanthropy in a corporate social responsibility (CSR) fund he has envisaged.

The tricky part of the demand raised through a letter by the corporate affairs secretary on July 5 is that the proposed fund will not be managed by the government but controlled by "outside the government by professionals and would have a board headed by Indian corporates".

Deora will be gone by the time the details of his brainchild fund are worked out as he has already urged Sonia Gandhi to relieve him from the ministerial responsibilities. The letter shot out to the corporate captains wants them to give their firm consent to the fund whose framework is still being finalised and "also indicate the amount your organisation may like to put in".

The way Deora has sought the companies to commit the donations has scared the corporate world as they say it smacks of compulsory payment of money into the fund and an unwritten warning of action against those refusing to succumb to this kind of arm twisting.

The punchline of Deora's demand for donations from the business houses is that their contribution for philanthropic activities will bring with it "an inherent issue of credibility and accountability of the recipient".

The corporate leaders say many industrial and business houses do philanthropic activities on their own with own machinery and hence the demand now to donate to the government-sponsored fund is intriguing as the money may be used by politicians for their own advantage with no control over the government as indicated in the letter itself.