Terms we use
What the words mean
CSR, tax, road-safety and materials terms that appear on this site, in plain English.
CSR, ESG and reporting
- CSR (corporate social responsibility)
- Under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, larger companies spend at least 2% of their average net profit of the last three years on social and environmental work.
- Schedule VII
- The list of activities that count as CSR spending, for example education and road-safety awareness (ii), environmental sustainability (iv), research (ix) and rural development (x).
- CSR-1
- The form an organisation files with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to be allowed to carry out CSR projects. It receives a CSR registration number.
- Impact assessment
- An independent study of what a programme achieved. Companies whose average CSR obligation is ₹10 crore or more must commission one for projects of ₹1 crore or more, a year after they finish.
- Baseline and endline
- The same measurements taken before a programme starts and after it ends, so the change can be shown.
- ESG
- Environmental, social and governance: the three headings investors and boards use to judge a company’s responsibility.
- BRSR
- The Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report that SEBI requires the 1,000 largest listed companies to publish with their annual report.
- SDGs
- The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, agreed in 2015. Target 3.6 aims to halve road deaths and injuries; target 11.2 is safe, accessible transport for all.
- EPR (extended producer responsibility)
- Companies that put plastic packaging on the market must collect and recycle an equal amount, under India’s Plastic Waste Management Rules.
Roads and road safety
- Blackspot
- A stretch of road of about 500 m where five or more crashes with deaths or grievous injuries, or ten deaths, happened in the last three years (the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways definition).
- Road-safety audit
- A street-by-street check of a road’s hazards by trained people, following the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) guidelines.
- Hot spot
- A place where potholes or rough road keep coming back. Companies can adopt hot spots near their sites through CSR; we fix and monitor them.
- Heat map
- A map that shows where potholes and rough roads cluster, built from vehicle sensors, research data and our field records.
- Zero-Harm School Zone
- Our programme for safe routes to school: route audits, crossings, signs and lights, and student road-safety ambassadors, measured before and after.
- Digital twin
- A computer model of a junction or road, used to test crossings, signals and speed tables before anything is built.
- GroundTruth
- The working name of our AI and data platform, which brings together audits, sensor data and repair records.
- BBMP
- Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, the Bengaluru city corporation named in many of our earlier projects.
Materials and research
- GridMats®
- Interlocking honeycomb mats made from recycled plastic, invented by Dr Prathap B, used to build roads, yards and paths (Indian Patent No. 398992).
- PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty)
- One international patent application that can lead to patents in many countries. Ours was published as WO/2023/100191.
- LCA (life-cycle analysis)
- A measure of a product’s environmental impact from raw material to the end of its life.
- Urban-heat cooling surface
- A surface for streets, schoolyards and bus stops that keeps them cooler, invented by Dr Prathap B and filed as a patent application in 2026.
- IoT sensors
- Small connected sensors, for example in GridMats pavements and cooling surfaces, that report how a surface performs.
- KVK
- Krishi Vigyan Kendra, a government farm science centre in a district.
Giving, tax and privacy
- 80G
- A section of the Income Tax Act. Indian donors can deduct gifts to an approved charity from their taxable income, within limits, under the old tax regime.
- 12AA and 12AB
- Income Tax registrations that let a charitable trust keep its income tax-free. 12AA was the earlier section; newer registrations are under 12AB.
- Form 10BD and Form 10BE
- Each year the charity reports its donations to the Income Tax Department in Form 10BD, and each donor receives a Form 10BE certificate to support their 80G claim.
- PAN
- The Permanent Account Number from the Income Tax Department. We need it to issue an 80G receipt.
- UTR
- The Unique Transaction Reference of a bank transfer. Send it with your 80G receipt request so we can match your gift.
- NEFT, IMPS and RTGS
- Ways to send money from one Indian bank account to another.
- UPI
- India’s instant payment system on phones. For UPI gifts, ask us on WhatsApp or by email for a payment request.
- FCRA
- The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. Indian charities may accept donations from abroad only into an FCRA-registered account.
- DPDP Act
- The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, India’s law on personal data. Our privacy policy explains how we follow it.