Hyderabad: The Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) and GAIL (India) Limited on Friday has received the "ICSI National Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance 2011" at Taj Krishna, Hyderabad.

This is indeed the Eleventh consecutive Award to be conferred on companies for promoting the cause of good Corporate Governance.

Mr. Anil Murarka, President, The ICSI delivered the welcome address by saying that the ICSI being one of the first professional bodies in India to initiate discussion on "Corporate Governance" in the light of Cadbury Committee Report took upon itself the task of promoting Good Governance in Corporate India by taking a number of initiatives in this direction.

Azim Hasham Premji, Chairman, Wipro Limited, was presented the Life Time Achievement Award for Translating Excellence in Corporate Governance into Reality.

The Top Five Companies also received the Certificate of Recognition for Excellence in Corporate Governance; they are CMC Limited, HCL Technologies Limited, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, Persistent Systems Limited and Union Bank of India.

Narasimhan, Hon'ble Governor, Andhra Pradesh, who was the chief guest in the award function, delivered his speech by saying that Strong and consistent economic growth for over a decade and a half has raised expectations and aspirations within the country. Managing these expectations and fulfilling the growing aspirations will determine the performance scorecard of all future policy and governance regimes.

Dr. M Veerappa Moily, Hon'ble Union Minister for Corporate Affairs in his address as the Guest of Honour, congratulated ICSI for successfully continuing its crusade towards imbibing the good Corporate Governance practices into the DNA of the Indian corporate sector through the professional competence of its members who are specialist in corporate governance and playing a leadership role in promoting corporate governance practices in India.

Shri N K Jain, Secretary & CEO, ICSI in his concluding remarks observed that the standards of policies and practices of governance are palpably going up in the Indian corporate sector. An year on year analysis of the top 10 companies in the last three years shows a significant improvement in the good governance practices being adopted by the Indian companies in areas such as clearly laid procedure for Induction of Independent Directors, attention towards directors' development and training, Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, engagement with investors, and Risk Management.