Guidelines on corporate governance for PSEs: Dev

New Delhi, Dec 14 (UNI) The government is formulating general guidelines on corporate governance for the Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs), Heavy Industries Minister Santosh Mohan Dev has said.

''The modified guidelines are proposed to be discussed at a roundtable being convened in early January 2007 to which about 40-50 eminent persons will be invited,'' Mr Dev said, while presiding over the Consultative Committee Meeting of his ministry last night.

The draft general guidelines on corporate governance was prepared taking into account the guidelines of SEBI, principles of corporate governance of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the existing government instructions on the composition of Board of Directors.

The draft guidelines were modified in consultation with the administrative and nodal ministries and departments, and Organisations such as CAG, SEBI, SCOPE, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Institute of Company Secretaries of India, Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India, and the National Foundation for Corporate Governance.

Mr Dev said the government was taking a number of steps for creating awareness and understanding of the corporate governance principles and encouraging their greater use among PSEs.

Guidelines on professionalisation of boards of PSEs through induction of requisite number of independent directors had already been issued for limiting the number of government directors on such boards, he added.

Minister of State for Heavy Industries Kanti Singh was also present at the occassion.

The MPs who attended the meeting were Mr Basudeb Acharya, Mr Chandrabhan Singh, Mr Lonappan Nambadan and Mr Ajay Chakraborty (all from Lok Sabha), and Mr K B Shanappa (Rajya Sabha).

UNI YJ CS ND1606