Women directors: 32 PSU firms non-compliant with Sebi norms

As many as 32 public sector firms, including GAIL, ONGC, NTPC, SAIL and Punjab National Bank have failed to comply with regulator Sebi's norms to appoint at least one woman director on their respective boards.

Bharat Electronics, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Container Corporation of India, Power Finance Corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation, are among other PSUs that have been non-compliant with Sebi directive, Prime Database said on Monday.

Going by information gathered by Prime Database, a total of 180 NSE-listed companies have not appointed a woman director on their respective boards within the due date.

These include as many as 32 public sector units and public sector banks.

"As many as 180 out of a total relevant 1,456 NSE- listed companies or nearly 12 per cent of the companies, had still not appointed a woman director," Prime Database managing director Pranav Haldea said.

All listed firms were required to have at least one woman director on their boards from April 1, this year, as per a new Sebi directive, as also under the Companies Act, 2013.

As on April 1, this year, about 832 women have been appointed to 912 directorship positions in 872 companies.

Of these 872 companies, 43 companies already had a woman on the board before the Sebi guideline was announced but appointed a second woman director on their board.

Of the remaining 829 firms which complied with the Sebi norms, as many as 278 did so in the month of March this year.

"The hope of another deadline extension appearing dim, there was a last minute rush to appoint women," Haldea said.

Data further showed that across all 1,456 NSE-listed firms, after the recent appointments of women, there are now 1,222 women presently occupying 1,431 directorship positions.

"Of these, more than half (671 women) are holding 713 non-independent directorship positions," Haldea said.

The 1,431 women directorships represent 12 per cent of the total 11,935 directorship positions, up from 5 per cent in February 2014, Haldea said.

The companies with the highest number of women directors (four each) are Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, Indraprastha Medical Corp and Monte Carlo Fashions.