The board of Indraprastha Gas Ltd. will meet on December 10 to consider a bonus issue of shares. This will be the first instance that the company will be declaring a free share issue for its shareholders.

With this, IGL has also become the first among its players to consider a proposal to issue free shares to its shareholders. Neither of its City Gas peers like Mahanagar Gas (MGL) or Gujarat Gas, have earlier issued bonuses to their shareholders.

IGL had earlier split one share with a face value of ₹10 into five shares of ₹2 back in 2017. Gujarat Gas too had carried out a similar stock split in 2019. MGL shares still carry a face value of ₹10.

The board meet for IGL comes on the back of a sharp correction in its stock price. The stock is down over 35% from its recent peak of ₹570. While shares of Mahanagar Gas have also corrected 36% from their peak of close to ₹2,000 per share, Gujarat Gas shares are down nearly 30% from their recent top.

Last month, IGL had announced a 20% reduction in domestic gas allocation, which took effect from November 16, following a similar reduction in October.

In response, IGL, MGL and Gujarat Gas all hiked their prices, but analysts said that the quantum would not be enough to compensate for the shortfall.

“Incrementally, any positive news in terms of supply side, pricing in terms of softness or pricing, could probably be a good opportunity to start buying into these stocks. But yes, right now, stay away. Let the dust settle and then probably look at it sometime later. My sense is that could probably be about three, four months,” Market Expert Prakash Diwan had said on November 18.

Shares of IGL are currently trading 6.1% higher at ₹382.1.