Mumbai, Feb 12: The Securities and Exchange Board of India has asked the Pune Stock Exchange (PSE) to furnish details on the proposed expansion of the Bombay Stock Exchange's BOLT terminals to Pune.The regulator has asked PSE to furnish the details along with a copy of the draft notice which would be sent to the brokers of the exchange. The notice, which would highlight the modus operandi of the BOLT expansion within the territory of Pune, is considered to be crucial to the decision of clearing the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two exchanges. Senior Sebi officials visited both the Pune and the Rajkot stock exchanges in the first week of February to inspect their working. Both these exchanges have been targeted by BSE for its expansion. As per Sebi norms, BSE cannot expand to a centre which already has a stock exchange without tying-up with the concerned exchange.
The delay in the BOLT expansion to the four cities of Calcutta, Pune, Ahmedabad and Rajkot has been attributed to concertedefforts being made by Sebi to ensure that all unwanted procedures or elements are weeded out of the system.
"The expansion of BOLT would mean providing an access to the PSE brokers availing of carryforward trading facility," commented a Sebi source.
"We need to first do away with the unscrupulous elements from the system in order to avoid problems which could prop up in future," he explained. According to sources, the clearance would be provided to PSE only after Sebi is sure that the expansion of the BOLT network would see fair business conducted at the exchange. These exchanges had signed an MoU with BSE way back in end-November, 1997. Sebi had earlier intimated the BSE brokers to get a no-objection certificate from the regional exchanges. This was to ensure that the respective exchanges were sure about the financial strength of the members who want to tie the knot.
"The four regional exchanges where BSE is planning to spread out its wings to have a history of defaults and various illegal badlatransactions. We have to be extremely cautious that the hedging facility is not manipulated," said a Sebi official.
BSE plans disaster-recovery site at Vashi
The BSE is setting up its disaster recovery site at Vashi (New Mumbai). The exchange is currently awaiting the Department of Telecommunications' (DoT) clearance for the same. It is reliably learnt that the exchange had earlier shortlisted a location in MIDC, Andheri, which Hughes Escorts Communication, the service provider, failed to clear. Technical experts say that the exchange has to get the clearance from Hughes Escorts Communications for the disaster site. Similarly, the exchange's plan to set up its own hub is also hanging fire, with the satellite failure of Insat 2-D in September.
According to sources, DoT has asked BSE to continue its operations on the existing Insat 2-C hub till such time that more transponder space can be found for them. The BSE's V-Sat network is connected to the hub set upby Hughes at Gurgaon.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
