Business

National seminar on corporate governance

KOCHI: George Sleeba, the chairman and managing director of The Fertilisers And Chemicals Travancore Ltd. (FACT), said that the public sector units (PSUs) have been able to survive the pressures of liberalisation and globalisation and attain commanding heights, thus enabling the Indian economy to withstand the global economic crisis.

Delivering a talk on “governance: specific issues of listed public sector undertakings” at a national seminar on corporate governance organised by IBS, Kochi, at AJ Hall near here on Saturday, Mr. Sleeba said that if not for the PSUs the Indian economy would have been in a different shape.

He observed that the concept of corporate social responsibility was built into the operation of the PSUs since the executives governing it were being under the constant monitoring of various investigating agencies and were now accountable under the Right to Information Act.

Mr. Sleeba said that he did not subscribe to the common perception that too much controls rendered the PSUs ineffective since such controls help prevent committing wrongs.

Earlier inaugurating the seminar, M.S.A. Kumar, chairman, CII-Kerala State Council, emphasised the importance of economic strength, technological vitality and moral leadership in corporate governance. Delivering the keynote address, J.R. Varma, professor, IIM Ahmedabad and former member of SEBI, said that corporate governance was being ignored during the “bubble” phase since the focus was only on returns.

He said corporate governance could work only if there were people with good ethical conduct.

Prof. R. Venugopal, IFMR, Chennai; C.J. George, managing director, Geojit Financial Services; K.S. Harshan, Executive Director, Federal Bank, Aluva also spoke.

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