Wayanad’s CSR experiment: Minister Siddique takes hill district’s needs to Corporate India

Wayanad is set to be declared Kerala's first e-waste-free district on October 2. Three new Anganwadis, along with 17 renovated ones, will be inaugurated on October 17. Students of Classes 8 and 9 in government and aided schools across the district will be able to take free psychometric tests to identify their strengths and help them choose academic streams.

These projects have one thing in common: they are being funded through corporate social responsibility (CSR) money. Agriculture Minister and Kalpetta MLA T Siddique said companies and foundations had committed about ₹15 crore for 59 projects in Wayanad in the first 100 days of the UDF government, of which around ₹7 crore was already spent.

Laptops were distributed to students, and more than 7,000 food kits and clothes were distributed during Onam. IT firm Quest Global funded the three new Anganwadis. EY Global Delivery Services is funding the e-waste-free initiative in collaboration with actor Mohanlal's ViswaSanthi Development Foundation. Eccetra is conducting the psychometric tests.

Talks are on with an NGO to provide breakfast in government and aided schools across the district. Talks are also on with foundations associated with two former captains of the Indian cricket team for a cricket academy in Wayanad.

The effort to bring such projects together has now taken the form of BHOOMI, a Wayanad-specific online platform for identifying local needs and finding people and organisations to fund them. Chief Minister V D Satheesan inaugurated BHOOMI on September 17.

“The idea is to put Wayanad’s development needs in one place, allow potential funders to see them and track what happens after a project is taken up,” said Siddique, who is working with Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for more CSR funding.

Unlike the National CSR Exchange run by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to connect registered companies and implementing agencies, BHOOMI is intended to involve government departments, companies, CSR foundations, NGOs, academic institutions, philanthropies, entrepreneurs, volunteers and communities, said Siddique, who is also the minister in charge of Wayanad. “Anyone can put up a project on BHOOMI. But it should be aligned with at least one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. We are looking for projects which the district needs, not what corporate houses want to fund,” he said.

An idea born from the landslide
The idea for BHOOMI was born out of what happened after the Chooralmala-Mundakkai landslide on July 30, 2024. Several NGOs and CSR foundations rushed to Wayanad to help with infrastructure, livelihoods and food in the aftermath. Siddique, then an MLA, found that students who were pursuing higher education outside the district lost one or both parents. Others had lost their homes or the family's means of paying for their education.

His team made a list of such students, approached companies for financial support and contacted universities and colleges seeking fee concessions. What began as an effort to prevent landslide-affected students from dropping out grew into a fully funded higher education programme for students across the district. The programme raised around ₹20 crore and supported 421 students, including 250 affected by the Chooralmala-Mundakkai disaster. “BHOOMI will identify such needs and will keep transparency and efficiency at the core of it,” Siddique said.

Kerala gets only 1% of CSR funds
Companies in India spent ₹40,794 crore on CSR activities in 2024-2025, according to the latest figures collated by research firm Fulcrum.

But only a small share of that money reaches the country's Aspirational Districts. In an analysis of 2,323 listed companies legally required to spend on CSR, research firm CRISIL found that 373 companies reported spending ₹2,256 crore in Aspirational Districts.

Aspirational Districts are those identified by the Union government for relatively poor development indicators and targeted for improvement in areas such as health and nutrition, education, agriculture, financial inclusion, skills and basic infrastructure. Wayanad is Kerala's only Aspirational District.

Across Kerala, companies spent nearly ₹400 crore on CSR in 2023-24, according to Ministry of Corporate Affairs data. That was just about 1% of the total CSR spending in the country that year.

The BHOOMI team sees this as an opportunity to bring more of the country's CSR money into the hill district.  

Bhoomi projects
With the ecologically vulnerable Wayanad facing regular landslides and human-wildlife conflict, the BHOOMI website already carries a range of proposed projects. One is a ₹12.95-crore proposal for an integrated human-wildlife conflict prevention, early-warning and rapid-response network for the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.

Govindpara seeks to settle 18 Paniya tribal families in Meppadi panchayat who have lived for generations without secure land ownership and adequate basic facilities. The proposal combines CSR funding for land acquisition with government support for housing and infrastructure, with land titles proposed in the names of both women and men.

Another is DogTag, a simple proposal for reflective collars for vaccinated and sterilised dogs. The collars would make the animals more visible to motorists at night and help identify them through veterinary records.

The projects also include planting 6,000 saplings under the Wayanad Township Project to compensate for trees lost in the landslides. Education, tribal development, healthcare, livelihoods, agriculture, climate resilience, biodiversity, sports and basic infrastructure are among the areas covered.

Projects submitted to BHOOMI are examined and assigned a five-level priority rating before being posted on the portal. Each is tagged with the relevant UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). A potential funder can indicate interest in a project and receive its detailed report. Once a project is taken up, its progress can be tracked on the portal.

Siddique has already travelled to Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad and met foundation heads. “We are working on flagship projects that will be listed on BHOOMI soon. Fundraising will continue throughout the year, and we plan to hold a BHOOMI conclave every December to bring funders and potential funders to Wayanad,” he said.