 "Chana")
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)’s directive on Thursday asking exchanges not to launch new chana (Bengal gram) contracts and allow only squaring off the open positions, following the suspension of chana futures, had an impact on prices in mandis. Prices went down on Friday by 1.7 per cent. In futures market, prices were below spot market as traders were reducing positions as heavy margins were already imposed by the regulator.
On Friday, the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX) spot chana price fell 1.7 per cent to Rs 6954 a quintal in Delhi mandi while futures was down 0.66 per cent to Rs 6,875. June last year, chana turnover on the NCDEX was Rs 1,165 crore and it was contributing 22.3 per cent of total NCDEX volumes. However, in past two months the average volume has come down to Rs 165 crore, 5.5 per cent of the exchange’s volumes.
Even open interest a year ago used to be 0.29 million tonnes, which fell to 15,000 tonnes on Friday.
As a big broker said, “We were expecting some actions on chana but now it is becoming clear once again that agriculture is undigested food for India commodity market.”
A sebi appointed task force is working on a criteria for commodities to qualify for trading in derivatives. Wheat and maize prices have also shot up 10 to12 per cent since April, but available stock with government has yet not raised panic button.
