MUMBAI, SEPT 23: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) today expanded the list of scrips for compulsory dematerialised trading by institutional investors to 235. SEBI has added another 125 securities to the list of 110 securities where institutions are required to trade only in demat shares through a depository.The new list will become effective from December 15 onwards. SEBI has also decided to examine how delivery of demat shares can be enhanced at stock exchanges by asking brokers to rectify bad delivery shares only by demat shares.
The decisions were taken by the working group on depositories which met on Wednesday. It was also decided to consider expanding the list of 10 securities where all investors have been asked to trade only demat shares from January 4 onwards and a meeting for this has been convened on October 20.
Of the 110 scrips identified for mandatory institutional demat trading, the diktat is effective in the case of 50 securities while the remaining 60 will be part of the directive from October 15 onwards. With the fresh addition almost all the top companies and more so most of those offering the demat facility would have been covered under mandatory demat trading for institutions provision of SEBI.
It was also decided to consult stock exchanges for making it mandatory on brokers to rectify bad delivery shares only in demat form and also make it mandatory for brokers who have a history of introducing bad delivery stock to deliver shares only in the demat form. To give a further boost to demat delivery, custodians will be asked to make prompt payment in respect of shares received by them fully in the demat form.
It was decided that delivery of demat shares will be treated as good delivery for negotiated deals also. Besides, institutional investors should compulsorily settle trades executed as negotiated deals in demat form with respect to securities where they have been mandated to trade only in demat shares.
The list of 125 securities includes, Balrampur Chini, Burroughs Wellcome, E Merck, Finolex Cables, Global Trust Bank, Godrej Soaps, Hotel Leelaventures, Ingersoll Rand, Nicholas Piramal, Novartis, P&G, Rhone Poulenc, Sesa Goa, Voltas Ltd, Wockhardt, Blow Plast, EID Parry, Himatsingka Seide, Usha India, Essel Packaging, Indian Shaving Products, Parke Davis, Reckitt & Colman, Smithkline Beecham, Smithkline Pharma, Swaraj Engines, Tata Hydro, Zee Telefilms, ONGC, Aptech, Cipla, Coates Viyella, Eicher Ltd, Eicher Motors, federal bank, HCL Infosystems, Hoechst Marrion, Ispat Industries, ITW Signode, Marico Industries, RPG Telecom, Sundaram Clayton, Tata Infotech and Vysya Bank.
Meanwhile, the number of depository participants (DPs) had increased to 65 with services being offered in 417 locations covering 126 cities and client accounts with the DPs had grown to 74,800 as of today, according to NSDL. The total value of shares dematerialised have grown by 18.5 per cent from around Rs 40,000 crore as on July 15 to Rs 47,400 crore today.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.