As per MSCI’s Women on Boards and Beyond report for 2025, women occupied 28.3% of board seats at publicly listed large- and mid-cap companies globally, up from 27.3% in 2024.
The Women’s Reservation Act, or the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, was passed by Parliament in 2023 with the aim that a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies, and in Delhi will be held by women.While the Centre’s efforts to bring the law’s implementation failed, corporate India has had its own version of the same for over a decade. And its results have been mixed.
As per The Companies Act of 2013, every listed company with a paid-up share capital of more than Rs 100 crore or a turnover greater than Rs 300 crore must appoint at least one female director to its board. And while companies are largely meeting this requirement — among Nifty 50 companies, ONGC is the only one without any women on its board of directors after Alka Mittal’s six-month term as the interim chairperson and managing director ended in August 2022 — the overall numbers don’t make for encouraging reading.
According to data compiled by The Indian Express, 17 of the Nifty 50 entities — which include some of India’s biggest companies — have only one female director on their boards.
“Under current regulations, many corporates appoint a female director for the sake of compliance, while some place family members as a form of token,” a corporate governance expert at a domestic law firm said, requesting anonymity.
“There have been some discussions (on increasing female representation), but it’s not currently at the forefront. The focus has been on other reforms in the corporate world, such as improving ease of doing business and simplifying regulations. But the government has to take a look at this (female representation) also sooner rather than later,” the expert added.
On the whole, there are 517 people on the boards of Nifty 50 companies. Of these, only 107, or around 21%, are women.
While this is broadly in line with how women are represented in positions of power in India in other spheres — teaching positions in higher education and owners of unincorporated enterprises, for instance – it remains below global levels.
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As per MSCI’s Women on Boards and Beyond report for 2025, women occupied 28.3% of board seats at publicly listed large- and mid-cap companies globally, up from 27.3% in 2024. More encouragingly, nearly 49% of companies had at least 30% female directors.
Among India’s Nifty 50 companies, the boards of Eternal (3 of 6) and Apollo Hospitals (5 of 10) have 50% representation by women.
Nine other companies have over 33% female representation — TCS, Hindustan Unilever, Ultratech Cement, Nestle India, Hindalco, Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra.
At the other end of the spectrum are five companies who only just meet the minimum requirement. These include L&T (1 of 17), NTPC (1 of 13), Bajaj Finance, Bharat Electronics, and State Bank of India.
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According to McKinsey’s latest Women in the Workplace report, while a majority of companies see diversity as a high priority and more than 80% remain committed to inclusion, commitment to women’s advancement is “much lower”.
“Only about half of companies say women’s career advancement is a high priority, and fewer are prioritising women of colour’s advancement. This matters: companies that place a high priority on gender diversity and women’s advancement see larger gains in women’s representation,” the report said.
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