Now, reservation for women on corporate boards

Company boardrooms can no longer be all-male bastions. Companies with five or more members on their boards must have at least one woman director, the corporate affairs ministry said on Tuesday, the centennial International Women's Day.

This provision will be incorporated in the new companies bill, which the government plans to introduce in Parliament in the current budget session.
 
''We have recommended that any company that has more than five members on its board should have at least one woman director,'' corporate affairs minister Murli Deora said.

The ministry noted that more than 70 per cent of company boards in India did not have a female member. ''The proposed provision in the companies bill will give rightful due to our women in the corporate world,'' Deora said.

''While the United Progressive Alliance government is making all efforts to reserve one-third of the seats in Parliament or legislative assemblies for women, this step is in that direction to achieve the cherished objective of women participation in decision making and giving them a rightful place in society,'' he added.

Just 11 per cent of of 240 large companies -Indian-owned as well as multinational, private as well as state-owned - have women chief executives, according to a study carried out by executive search firm EMA Partners in late 2009.

Among the women who have broken the corporate glass ceiling are Chanda Kochhar and Shikha Sharma - head India's second-largest bank ICICI Bank and its third-largest bank, Axis Bank. 

Yet nearly 70 per cent of Indian companies do not have any woman as board members.

Industry body Assocham in a study released on the eve of the Women's Day stated that at present, of 1,112 directorships of 100 Bombay Stock Exchange-listed companies, only 59 positions - or 5.3 per cent -are held by women. This compares poorly with 15 per cent in Canada, 14.5 per cent in the US and 12.2 per cent in Britain.