At its last meeting the company cleared the proposal to recruit the officers to the CSR cadre this year.

It is the first time that such a large team is being organised for CSR activities in any private or public sector company in India.

Coal India and its eight subsidiaries will be spending around 300 crore rupees ($A59.6 billion) in 2014-15 on CSR activities.

It could be spread over the company's 85 mining regions.

India’s new companies law makes it compulsory for companies of a strong financial strength to spend at least 2% of average net profit on CSR over three years.

Until now, it had restricted its participation mainly to funding non-government organisations, whose CSR projects were approved by the Coal India board.

The move to raise a CSR team comes after the government reprimanded the company for not spending its CSR funds effectively in 2011-12.

The company managed to spend only 15% of the funds reserved for CSR during that year.

In a report, the Kalyan Banerjeeled standing committee on coal and steel said that out of an allotment of R554 crore for the year, Coal India could spend only R82 crore, labelling it a "gross failure".

Although the coal ministry replied that it had intentions to spend the money on CSR activities, the committee said that in reality, it seemed the ministry did not have a serious intention to spend it.