New Companies Bill to be tabled in monsoon session: Govt

New Delhi, Jun 25 (UNI) The government today announced that the Competition Commission will become fully operational by the end of the year and avowed that it will introduce the new Companies Bill in the ensuing monsoon session of Parliament.

This was stated here by Secretary in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs Anurag Goel while speaking at a seminar here.

He said the new Companies Bill will incorporate the suggestions of the Irani Committee, other isues entailing Corporate governance, as well as other documents along with the comments from the public on these in the new Bill. He said these details were on the website of the Ministry.

The two-day seminar on Network on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises in Asia has been jointly organised by SCOPE, OECD and the Japanese Government.

It has been hosted by the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the National Foundation for Corporate Governance.

Others who spoke on the occassion included Secretary in the Department of Public Enterprises R Bandhyopadhyay, Deputy Director, Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs Riner- Gieger and President Singapore Institute of Directors John Lim.

Mr Lim is also the Chair, Asian Network on Corporate Goverance of State Oowned Enterprises(SOEs).

Mr Goel said Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) helps in improving performance and better growth of the company.

Mr Goel was in some ways akin to inclusive growth and thus beome an important part of corporate and social strategies. "We need to recognise that corporate strategies today go beyond making profits and increasing returns to share holders. CSR as an important ingredient of corporate performance leads to a relationship between corporate governance and sustainable economic development," he said.

Mr Goel this philosophy has had profound impact on corporate policy formulation.

He said the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, a think tank on corporate strategies, was being set up and would help in policy formulation.

Mr Bandyopadhyay said CSR was a broader concept and went beyond corporate governance in helping a company, be it public or private.

Thew relatively new concept enable corprates to become more acceptable in the society by taking care of their employees and their dependents.

Citing government's efforts in introducing and implementing corporate governance guidelines among PSEs in India as a means to strengthen them, Mr. Bandyopadhyay said internalising corporate governance practices would be good for the growth and expansion of PSEs.

Mr Bandhyopadhya cited facts and figures to establish that CPSEs have grown phenomenally in a competitive environment and are expected to do even better than they have done in the past.

Good corporate governance would help them in improving productivity and efficiency and thus become globally competitive.

Earlier in his welcome address, SCOPE Director General S M Dewan said good corporate governance makes good business sense and experience shows that it positively impacts corporate performance.

''Various efforts by the government in propagating and introducing corporate governance in PSEs are in line with their importance in the Indian economy," he said.

Mr Dewan said PSEs account for 8.23 per cent of GDP. He said even though one per cent of total listed companies are PSEs, they account for 25 per cent of the total market capitalisation of the country.

Policy concerns with corporate goverance issues has been driven in recent years primarily by a series of corporate scandals and failures in a number of countries. Although bankruptcies are to some extent a cyclical phenomomenon, and specially so following an asset price bubble, systematic weaknesses have also been seen.This underlines the importance of corporate responsibility and the need for co-ordinated response and information sharing of experiences.

The meeting is being attended by over 100 Chief Executives, Directors and senior officials of PSEs.

India.

UNI GS SR AS1725