The decision will be put up for approval of the company shareholders at the annual general meeting to be held on January 11, 1999. The Shiv Nadar-promoted company has sent a mandatory notice to the Bombay Stock Exchange a few days ago.

An official spokesperson of NIIT declined to comment on whether the company board considered that the time was ripe for offloading an additional 6 per cent holding. He, however, said the request had come from the FII shareholders.

It may be recalled that the board had decided to withdraw a resolution to this effect at the previous AGM in September owing to a disagreement with shareholders who felt the time was not ripe for such an exercise. They held the view that due to the then prevailing price of the company's scrip, the boardshould defer the decision.

At Monday's meeting, the board also decided to appoint two non-executive directors. The two new directors are Motorola India chairman Amit Sharma and financial and management consultant Subroto Bhattacharya.

According to the company spokesperson, the decision to induct the two new directors was taken keeping in line with the global norms of corporate governance to include eminent people on the board of corporates.

At present, NIIT board has besides chairman Shiv Nadar, five directors: the managing director Rajendra S Pawar, president and chief executive Vijay K Thadani, chief operating officer P Rajendran, director software solutions Arvind Thakur and Gopal D Chakravarthy, who is director incharge of NIIT's Europe operations.