Sucheta Dalal :Biased austerity
Sucheta Dalal

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Biased austerity   

October 5, 2009

 

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has created a perception of being a government entity with its virtual monopoly over running the stock market. But it has the highest paid non-promoter executives in the country, Ravi Narain, managing director, and Chitra Ramakrishna, deputy managing director.
 
Mr Narain and Ms Ramakrishna had an astounding gross annual income of Rs6.89 crore and Rs4.21 crore respectively, besides other perks in 2008-09. The salary of Mr Narain is more than London Stock Exchange (LSE) chief Xavier Roulet (around Rs 5.6 crore) and equal to NYSE Euronext CEO’s, Jean-Fancoise Theodore (around Rs7 crore).
Comparatively, NSE’s supposed competitor Bombay Stock Exchange’s (BSE) CEO Madhu Kannan earned a gross income of Rs1.6crore.
 
Interestingly, the stock exchanges which are in charge of regulating listed companies themselves refrain from maintaining transparency. NSE refrains from giving any information via Right to Information (RTI). Even its annual reports are not easily available nor does it comply with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) norms.
 
The NSE has even filed a petition for a stay order on a request by the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) in Delhi from revealing any information relating to NSE. In its petition, NSE has stated that ‘they are a non-government private sector company’ and not under the jurisdiction of RTI. But how just is the argument of the NSE not to reveal any information, considering it has large public sector undertakings like State Bank of India, Life Insurance Company (LIC) etc. as investors? If NSE is a private sector company, it is the only one to have a virtual monopoly in a crucial business that deals with million of citizens. - Aditya Kshirsagar [email protected]

-- Sucheta Dalal