A replica of the bonus debentures certificate of Rs 77.25 billion was presented here to the union finance minister Arun Jaitley,  by Piyush Goyal, minister of power, coal and new & renewable energy in the presence of P.K.Sinha, secretary, department of power, Government of India, Arup Roy Choudhury, CMD, NTPC, K. Biswal, director (finance), NTPC, I. J. Kapoor, director (commercial),  NTPC, U. P. Pani, director (Human Resources), NTPC, S.C. Pandey, director (projects), NTPC and K. K. Sharma, director (operations), NTPC among others.

The Government of India receives 6.18 billion bonus debentures amounting to Rs 77.25 billion by virtue of its 74.96% shareholding in NTPC. In addition to the bonus debentures, the Government of India has also received Rs 20.60 billion as dividend distribution tax on the debentures.

NTPC has earlier issued, by way of bonus, one fully paid-up, secured debenture of Rs 12.50 each, for every one fully paid-up equity share of Rs 10 each held by its members. The issue size of the bonus debenture is of Rs 103.06 billion and is also the biggest issue of its kind in the Country and also the first ever by any PSU. The Bonus Debentures carries the Coupon Rate of 8.49% p.a. payable annually and has been allotted.

The need for issuing bonus debentures was felt sometime in July-August 2014. As on Mar. 30, 2014, the company had free reserves of over Rs 720 billion and a cash balance of Rs 153 billion. Since the Company is in regulated generation business, there is little room for improvement of profitability. High net worth of around Rs 850 billion depresses ROE which works out to only around 12.78% on reported basis. Thus there was a need for capital optimization.