Vide this notification, CSR Rules and Schedule VII of the Act has been amended, to enable the R&D expenditure incurred by companies in R&D of Covid-19 vaccine, drug(s) and medical devices in their normal course of business, to account it as CSR expenditure, for financial years 2020-2021, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, so long as these companies carry out their R&D in collaboration with the institutes or organisation mentioned in item (ix) of Schedule VII to the Act- such as Central/State Government/Public Sector Undertaking funded incubators, IITs, National Laboratories established by certain Central Government Departments – Department of Biotechnology, AYUSH etc.

In addition, such companies, should specify the details of the activity carried out on such research and development, in their CSR report as part of their Board’s Report to the shareholders.