Through a case of community development project in open caste coal mining areas, this paper demonstrates how businesses could successfully engage with the communities for Corporate Social Responsibility and other development activities. The five phases of the project were implemented over a period of three years (2015–2018) in Jharia Coal mines by a public sector mining company in India. The critical enablers and constraints at different phases of the project implementation have been identified. Based on our study, we propose a novel framework for business‐community interface for similar projects. The paper highlights implications for both practitioners and researchers and is quite significant in light of the Corporate Social Responsibility mandate in India and the growing interest of corporates in community development projects.

No abstract