Adopt CG as a compliance, not as regulation; Sebi chairman

Mumbai, Sep 29 (UNI) Securities and Exchange Board of Indias' (SEBI) Chairman M Damodaran today gave a call to adopt corporate governance (CG) as a compliance rather than a mere regulation.

Addressing over video during the second one-day 'CII Corporate Governance Summit' here, Mr Damodaran said that rather than treating it as a regulation, we should treat it as a compliance as the value of governance was recognised well through CG.

We need to move away from arithmetic of bold composition to take CG to compliance, understand it and bring transparency in the governance, he said. Though SEBI has already put in place the regulatory framework for this, it was only a starting point and a lot more was yet to be done towards this direction, he added.

The wholetime member of SEBI Dr T C Nair said, ''CG makes corporates efficient, dynamic and vibrant in a competitive and fast changing market environment.'' On what should be the role of CG, MD&CEO of Bombay Stock Exchange and chairman, Rajnikant Patel, said that the CG need to attract capital market investment. We need to have CG as a theme at every level in management for effective role of independent directors and to ensure transparency in decision making, he said.

The correct order of decision making hierarchy in fact corrects the balance of orders, he said adding that the concept of trusteeship was still relevant today.

The Managing Director of National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE), Ravi Narain, rued that people are only used to taking the CG as a rule, but not taking it as a way of life. If we are going to compete with the global market, then we'll have to welcome CG, he emphasised.

Chairing the inaugural session of the summit, Chairman of Godrej Group, Adi Godrej who is also heading the CII National Council on Corporate Governance and Regulatory Framework, said that ''CG has already worked well in the other parts of the world and hence it was time we too adopted it in a good spirit.'' UNI KKD MJ NV1501