No women at 400 boardrooms

With just two days left, many cos are yet to appoint women directors GENDER ROLES

New Delhi, March 29: Despite a Sebi deadline to appoint women directors coming to end in just two days, nearly 400 listed companies are yet to comply with the guideline.

Listed companies are required to have at least one woman director before April 1 and recently, Sebi also indicated that there would not be any further relaxation on the deadline.

Recently, the market regulator has warned of serious consequences for non-compliance.

Despite the Sebi’s efforts, as many as 395 listed firms were yet to have women directors on their boards as on March 25. “395 of 1,478 listed companies on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) do not have any female rep- resentation on their respective boards as on March 25,” as per data compiled by Prime Database.

The past week alone saw over 50 listed firms, including Hero Motocorp, Bajaj Auto, Tata International and a host of small and mid-cap firms roping in female directors on their boards.

Some more companies are expected to appoint women directors before the April 1 deadline as they have scheduled their board meetings in the next two days.

These companies include ABC India, SRM Energy, Parnax Lab, Anna Infrastructures and Mazda Properties.

After Sebi’s directive in February last year, many companies had stepped up efforts to have women directors on their boards and nearly 500 female members were nominated to the same till December 2014, although many of them happen to be family members of the promoters.

According to industry observers, many firms are appointing their women executives to several boards to comply with the Sebi’s order, while others are naming wives, daughters, mothers and sisters of the promoters on their boards,

“These women shall have the same voice as the promoter, defeating the very purpose of genuine (independent) gender diversity,” Prime Database managing director Pranav Haldea explained.

The Sebi guidelines, which are a part of Sebi’s Corporate Governance Code, were issued by the market regulator way back in February 2014 and the initial deadline of October 1, 2014 was extended by another six months. — PTI