new delhi apr 10 to ensure good corporate governance practices markets regulator sebi has asked the government to ensure that listed psus are in full compliance with the norms relating to independent directors sebi has also begun sensitising noncompliant public sector undertakings psus directly about the norms mandating a certain percentage of independent members on their boards a top regulatory official said while the government has assured sebi that necessary action has been initiated to ensure compliance the regulator on its part has initiated preliminary action against some of the companies while ruling out any leeway to the psus visavis their private sector peers sebi is also firm on all listed staterun firms having at least one woman director on their respective boards without any further delay and also increase their public shareholding to minimum 25 per cent within stipulated timeframe while there is still time left for listed psus to have minimum 25 per cent public holding the noncompliance on the woman director front is very low now the official added as per the data compiled by corporate professionals a leading advisory firm only four psus are noncompliant with the requirement of at least one woman director but as many as 14 do not have required number of independent directors all listed firms including psus without required number of independent directors have been intimated through the stock exchanges to ensure compliance at the earliest the official said while warning of necessary action in case of further delay in meeting the requirements however some of these companies including ptc india have questioned their names being included in the list of non compliant firms saying they are in full compliance in reply to a communication from stock exchanges about noncompliance ptc india has now cited an expert legal opinion to state that it was in full compliance with its board having more than 50 per cent nonexecutive directors and over onethird independent directors sebis listing obligations and disclosure requirements lodr regulations do not differentiate between private and public sector listed companies for board composition under these norms not less than 50 per cent of the board members should be nonexecutive directors if the chairperson of the board is a nonexecutive director at least onethird of the board needs to be independent directors in case of a listed company not having a regular nonexecutive chairperson at least half of the board members need to be independent directors the board of a listed company also needs to have at least 50 per cent independent directors in case of the regular nonexecutive chairperson being a promoter of the listed company or being related to any promoter or a person holding a boardlevel or a top management position commenting on the noncompliance at psus corporate professionals founder pavan kumar vijay said since the government has a long consultancy process and passes through many channels to appoint the best available persons in psus undue delay is bound to take place in the selection process of