The Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, a think tank and training institue of the ministry of corpoarte affairs (MCA), on Friday organised a multi-stakeholders consultation to discuss the draft National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of business and the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. The consultation was made as an effort to discuss and facilitate dialogue among stakeholders, including Companies, chambers, industrial associations and MSMEs on adopting "Responsible Business" practices and its subsequent disclosure through reporting.

The draft guidelines aim to develop and foster an understanding of responsible business in India in terms of social, environmental and economic business responsibility of business in India.

Manoj Arora, former director, MCA said that NVG is an attempt to replace corporate social responsibility. He said, "CSR is an old term. Now the world has moved beyond CSR and we should adopt NVGs to create a responsible business".

Viraf Mehta, an expert on CSR and human rights, present at the consultation, also made strking remarks that the two per cent mandatory CSR should not be made a part of the new companies bill and it will surely be replaced by the NVGs. He added, "Mandatory CSR will create alot of problems later as the companies would not disclose their profits. In the NVGs Companies would have to report and disclose which will be sort of monitoring".  

The NVGs 2010 are a revised version of the CSR Voluntary Guidelines, which were drafted by the IICA in 2009 and subsequently released by the ministry. Following the review process the NVGs 2010 are presently awaiting a formal release by the MCA.