Licences of 8 exchanges to expire this year

Licences of as many as eight bourses in the country will come up for renewal this year, while two of them - Ludhiana Stock Exchange and Gauhati Stock Exchange - will see the validity of their current licences ending this month itself.

The licence of Ludhiana exchange expires on April 27, followed by Gauhati exchange's on April 30 as per the information available with market regulator Sebi.

In June, the licences of U P Stock Exchange and Bhubaneswar Stock Exchange would come up for renewal.

Other bourses whose licences are up for renewal this year include OTC Exchange of India (August 22), Pune Stock Exchange (September 1), MCX SX Exchange (September 15) and Inter- Connected Stock Exchange of India (November 17).

Except for MCX-SX, which began operations as a stock exchange in February, most of these exchanges are either non-operational or have negligible business volumes.

As per Sebi norms, stock exchanges which desire to be recognised have to apply in the prescribed manner to the central government. The licences, once granted, are renewed periodically by the market regulator.

The country's leading bourses, NSE and BSE that account for more than 99% of volumes, have been granted permanent licences.

Others with permanent licences include Ahmedabad Stock Exchange, Bangalore Stock Exchange, Calcutta Stock Exchange, Delhi Stock Exchange, Madhya Pradesh Stock Exchange and Madras Stock Exchange.

In May last year, Sebi came out with new regulations that allow surrender of recognition and an exit from the capital markets for those exchanges that are either non-operational or have negligible volumes.

According to the norms, stock exchanges with annual trading turnover of less than Rs 1,000 crore can apply to Sebi for voluntary surrender of recognition and exit, at any time before the expiry of two years.

In the recent months, Sebi has allowed three stock exchanges to exit from the capital market. These are -- Hyderabad Stock Exchange, Coimbatore Stock Exchanges and Saurashtra Kutch Stock Exchange.

In a statement earlier this month, Sebi had said that four more exchanges have applied for exit which include recognised stock exchanges that are not operational.

The exchanges whose current licences would come up for renewal early next year include Jaipur Stock Exchange, Vadodara Stock Exchange and the United Stock Exchange of India.