Along with these relaxations the government withdrew the existing facility available to corporates of pre-payment to an extent of 20 per cent in the company's outstanding balance.

The late evening release issued by the ministry of finance says that in the wake of continued uncertainty in international financial markets on account of the South East Asian crisis the government has decided to review the guidelines.

As per existing guidelines corporates are given six months time to financially close and for the financial agreements to be taken on record. In case they are unable to do so there is a cooling off period of three months before they can reapply for an external commercial borrowing. In view of the prevailing difficult internantionalfinancial market situation it has been decided to further reduce the cooling off period from three months to one month, the release says. This comes into effect immediately.

It has also been decided to permit an extension of validity of one month across the board for all approvals which will lapse between July 1 to July 31, 1998. This would be applicable only to those approvals which have lapsed before July 1, 1998. In other words approvals which are valid as per existing guidelines as on July 1, 1998 will not get this facility, the release says.

The release clarifies that this is a one time extension purely to accommodate requests of companies which have sought time for conclusion of financial closure on account of delay caused due to uncertainty in financial markets.

Buy-back billNEW DELHI: The government is all set to introduce a short bill in the current Parliament session to bring in half-a-dozen new provisions for amendment of the Companies Act, 1956.

Sources in the DCA which is inthe final stages of preparing a cabinet note for changes in the Act, said that the short bill would permit buy-back of shares by corporates, introduction of sweat equity for software companies.