Mumbai, March 23 (IANS): The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Monday relaxed compliance regulations for listed entities which have listed their non-convertible debentures (NCD), commercial papers (CP), non-convertible redeemable preference shares (NCRPS) and municipal debt securities.

The development comes on the backdrop of the coronavirus scare and is a part of the regulators' efforts to ease compliance burden during the crisis period.

The security market regulator has extended the issuance date for debt securities by 60 days to May 31, and the timeline for filing of large corporate initial and annual disclosures till June 30.

Sharing the SEBI circular, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said: "In an ongoing exercise to ease the compliance burden during the #CoronavirusOutbreak, @SEBI_India has decided to relax some compliance provisions with regard to listed entities that have listed their NCDs, NCRPS, CPs and municipal debt securities. #IndiaFightsCorona."

Last week, SEBI allowed listed companies to file their fourth quarter and annual financial results by June 30. In general, companies have to report their earnings within one month of a quarter-end and if results get delayed, the companies have to inform the exchanges.

The regulator also extended the date of filing quarterly corporate governance reports by one month and for releasing quarterly shareholding pattern by three weeks.

Government regulators have sprung into action to pacify the markets and companies.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also has come up with several steps, including open market purchase of government securities and variable rate term repos.

On Monday, the central bank announced to conduct variable rate term repos of Rs 1 lakh crore.