• Prarthana Mishra
• Dr. Sabat Kumar Digal

The Indian banking industry is fairly regulated by Reserve Bank of India and Banking Regulation Act, still, it suffers in regard to ethical practices, financial crisis and corporate governance. Banks are specialized institutions that deals with customers. Once the customer’s faith is lost, the banks will cripple. In order to gain the confidence of the stakeholders, the banks should be transparent, accountable and credible. Although banks need a degree of confidentiality, still timely disclosure of information will promote credibility. Indian banks have discovered that for long-term growth, the bank should develop a unique relation with customers, creditors, suppliers, investors and the society they serve. In this perspective, there is a need to examine the extent of sustainability reporting by the banks operating in India. Various frameworks and guidelines have been developed to incorporate the sustainability issues in their strategies. GRI guidelines is widely adopted by the business organization in sustainability reporting. The aim is to make these organizations more responsible towards sustainable developments. So far, few studies have been made on sustainability reporting practices followed by Indian banks. There are 12 Public Sector Banks and 21 Private Sector Banks operating in India. Among them State Bank of India (SBI) is the largest bank in the public sector and Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) is the largest bank in the private sector. These two banks are also placed in Nifty 50 in terms of capitalisation. So, the paper attempts to study how these two banks have reported their sustainability practice as per GRI G4 standards. Is there any difference in sustainability practice between public sector banks and private sector banks, and how the sustainability practice performance has impacted their financial performance. The period of the study is for nine years, that is from 2012-2013 to 2020- 2021. The data are collected from the sustainability report and annual report through company website. Statistical tools like descriptive statistics, correlation and regressions are conducted to analyze the data.

GRIG 4, Sustainable Development, Economic Development, Sustainable Issues, SBI, HDFC.

"SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING PRACTICES IN INDIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HOUSING DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION AND STATE BANK OF INDIA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.11, Issue 4, page no.j210-j220, April-2024, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2404927.pdf

"SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING PRACTICES IN INDIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HOUSING DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION AND STATE BANK OF INDIA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.11, Issue 4, page no. ppj210-j220, April-2024, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2404927.pdf