Back'PTC India Financial Services operations hit by curbs on board'
In an interview, Singh said that with new board members, the company is ready to accelerate its loan disbursals
PremiumNEW DELHI : PTC India Financial Services (PFS), which saw independent directors quit en masse in January citing misgovernance, could not take any significant business decisions in the six months to 30 September amid restrictions on the board, managing director and chief executive Pawan Singh said.
In an interview, Singh said that with new board members, the company is ready to accelerate its loan disbursals and aims to lend around ₹3,000 crore in the last second half of this fiscal, compared to just ₹1,000 crore in the April-September period. He further said that the company aims to increase its lending up to ₹6,000 crore in the next fiscal.
“After November, there was not much business...December, an important month was a washout. The first quarter which is the most significant quarter, was also kind of a washout for us because we didn’t have a board. So we didn’t do anything. And when the board came, there was no clarity as to what the new board will do. Because initially, the mandate for the board was that they would only come here, induct new independent directors and go back. That was the mandate," he said. He, however, said that the controversies are now “behind" it, and with the new board in place, the company has set in motion the lending processes.
On the recent resignation of independent directors, he said that independent directors were initially appointed from the PTC board temporarily. He also cited the resignation letter of Sushma Nath, wherein she cited her age and completion of her role, including that in finalizing the financial results, as the reasons for stepping down.
He also said that the allegations of misgovernance are “false and factually incorrect". Recently former secretary in the finance ministry Sushma Nath, former principal chief commissioner of income tax, Mumbai, Devendra Swaroop Saksena and Jayant Purushottam Gokhale, founder of Gokhale & Sathe, resigned from the board of PTC’s controversy-hit unit PTC India Financial Services (PFS).
In his resignation letter from the board of PFS, Saksena said the PTC India subsidiary follows deficient governance practices as shown by findings of a forensic audit conducted between July and November, non-constitution or delayed constitution of statutory committees that have resulted in penal actions by regulators.
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