The government on Thursday exempted NBFCs, banking, insurance and power companies from filing their annual documents, including profit and loss accounts, in electronic format XBRL.

Last month, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) had said that all big companies would be required to file their annual result of 2010-11 in XBRL to ensure greater transparency and improvement in corporate governance.

MCA in a circular issued today said that "banking, insurance, power companies, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and overseas subsidiaries of these companies" will be exempted from this arrangement.

The circular added that all companies-- other than the above-- listed in India and their subsidiaries, having paid up capital of Rs 5 crore and above, or a turnover of Rs 100 crore or above will have to file their document in XBRL format.

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is a computer software.

At present, companies file their annual returns and balance sheets with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs by filing up an e-form. Use of XBRL format would allow the users of financial information to electronically retrieve data with greater accuracy.

Companies that consider March 31 as the closing day for a given fiscal can file their balance sheets in the new format by September, without paying an additional fee.