The Government of India in the Union Budget of 2018-19, made the following announcement
SEBI will also consider mandating, beginning with large Corporates to meet about one-fourth of their financing needs from the debt market. Since then, SEBI has been working on operationalizing the 2018-19 Budget announcement which mandates large corporates to raise 25% of their financing needs from the corporate bond market. In this backdrop, SEBI came out with a discussion paper on July 20, 2018. Based on the feedback received on the discussion paper and wider consultation with market participants including entities, SEBI vide its Circular No. SEBI/HO/ DDHS/ CIR/ P/2018/144 dated November 26, 2018 came out with detailed guidelines for fund raising by issuance of debt securities by LC. These guidelines prescribe the detailed framework to be followed by a LC for fund raising by issuance of debt securities. Further, these guidelines mandated a LC to make certain disclosures to the stock exchanges, where its security (ies) is listed. SEBI has time and again, recognised the significant role played by a Company Secretary as a Governance Professional under various SEBI Regulations. In this direction, one more feather has been added to the cap of Company Secretaries by SEBI. SEBI, will its continues endeavour towards good governance has prescribed in the aforesaid guidelines, that the disclosures made by the LC to the stock exchanges with respect to issuance of debt securities, shall be certified both by the Company Secretary and the Chief Financial Officer of the LC.