New Delhi: Even after a week of the March 31 deadline announced by market regulator SEBI, almost 90 per cent of listed Public Service Units (PSUs) have failed to meet the requirement of appointing women on their boards.
In all, there are a total of 68 government-owned companies, four by the state government and 64 by the central government, which are listed under the National Stock Exchange. Out of these, 31 do not have a woman director on board which amounts to almost 50 per cent of them being non-complaint. This is as per the data compiled by a primary market advisory firm Prime Database.
Compared to this, the compliance level is significantly better in case of private sector players. As per the data updated till March 31, 2015, out of the 1672 non-PSU firms listed on NSE, only 9 percent are non-compliant.
When some senior PSU executives were contacted to find out the reason of this, they in turn blamed the delay on the government.
A senior-official with a state-owned energy sector firm, on condition of anonymity said, “The delay is procedural. The nomination (of the director) has to be done by the government and these formalities take time.”
An NTPC spokesperson while responding to the query made Indian Express daily said, “We had a woman director on our board till recently (Homai A Daruwalla was on the NTPC board till January 29, 2015)… The process (for a fresh appointment) is on.”
Power Finance Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd did not give any response until the report came out in press.
Though, SAIL (Steel Authority of India Limited) has managed to fulfill the condition. It has Bharathi Sivaswami Sihag (female) as the Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor in the Steel Ministry.
