NEW DELHI, INDIA: NASSCOM, the premier trade body and the "voice" of the Indian IT – BPO industry, announced that it would form a Corporate Governance and Ethics Committee to strengthen corporate governance practices in the Indian IT-BPO industry.

The committee would be chaired by N R Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor, Infosys Technologies Ltd. It would function as a permanent sub-committee under the aegis of the NASSCOM executive council.

Som Mittal, president, NASSCOM, said "This committee will look to work with authorities, policy makers and regulators, to achieve the objectives of this group."

Envisaged as an eight-member committee, members would include industry experts, independent directors as well as academicians and would meet at least thrice a year to formulate strategies and measure implementation schedule.

Ganesh Natarajan, chairman, NASSCOM, and global CEO, Zensar Technologies, said "While the committee will focus on awareness and advocacy and share best practices across the member community, we will also be considering steps to further strengthen the excellent reputation of this sector in corporate India."

The objectives of this committee would include sharpening the existing code of ethics, values and corporate code of conduct for industry; emphasising existing regulations and practices on corporate governance and re-drafting and re-affirming appropriate code of ethics, values and corporate code of conduct for industry.

This committee would look to establish and maintain credibility for the industry among customers, analysts, government, employees, society etc, and will also look to engage with relevant stakeholders and build a desirable framework for the industry that includes a "model code of governance and best practices" and a "model set of financial information disclosures".

Additionally, it would also develop and create awareness of best practices to be followed by the board, audit committees and independent directors of organisations. 

Creating awareness across various levels of management and encourage formulating and strengthening of whistle blower policy will be additional focus areas for this committee.