New Delhi, Sept 3 (KNN) More than half of the companies listed on the National Stock Exchange are yet to appoint at least one woman director on their board of directors in order to comply with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi's) mandate.

According to an estimate by the PRIME database, 755 out of a total 1,469 companies listed on the NSE, which means 51 per cent of the companies didn’t have a woman director as of August 31. Thus, in order to meet the regulator’s October 1 deadline, India Inc will have to make 25 appointments a day.

PRIME database operates indianboards.com, a joint initiative with NSE. PRIME Database is India's first and still the only database dedicated to the primary capital market covering fund raising by the Indian corporate sector and the Government through equity, debt or securitisation, in India or abroad. 

The Sebi mandate was announced in February to have at least one woman on their board of directors by October 1.

According to indianboards.com, even after the recent appointments of women directors, there are only 696 women occupying 830 directorship positions across the 1,469 NSE-listed companies.  Of these, while 428 hold 463 non-independent directorship positions, only 290 account for 367 independent directorships.  If boards were required to have independent women directors, as many as 1,121 companies (or 76 per cent) wouldn’t have met the norm.

According to the Managing Director of PRIME Database, Pranav Haldea, “These women shall have the same voice as the promoter, defeating the very purpose of genuine (independent) gender diversity,” reports media. (KNN/SD)