A Sebi official said that they have already written to the stock exchanges of national, Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi regarding this and would soon communicate this to other stock exchanges as well. He said at BSE itself there were about 3800 scrips which were not being traded for the last few years and the respective companies were also not paying the listing fees. At DSE, about 1800 companies were not traded out of the listed 3800 companies. The Sebi wants stock exchanges to delist these companies. However, it did not specify the action to be taken against these companies by the exchanges, he said.

Sources in Sebi said they have not given any time frame to the stockexchanges to initiate action against erring firms though they would like to see some measures being taken soon.

A DSE official said it was considering delisting the scrips of firms not paying listing fees. However, in other cases like non-payment of dividend, failure to publish company results, the stock exchange would resort to delisting as a last step, he said.

The DSE official said delisting was easier said than done as it involved the investments of a large number of retail investors. Besides, the Sebi guidelines on the issue were also not clear enough, he said. As far investors were considered, delisting would end all hopes to sell the shares when the stock market turns around or the need arises.

The stock exchange was the only link that these investors had with the companies, he said adding that with delisting the investors would be left with no information about the company.

The DSE official said the exchange would tread cautiously and study the situation carefully before taking a finaldecision. According to the Chandratre committee, which submitted its report on delisting to Sebi, investors should be given an exit option by the company before its delisting.This, however, applies to companies wanting to delist from a particular exchange and not the other way round, the official said.

Delisting would not result in revenue loss for the exchanges in cases where the ground for delisting is non-payment of fees. However, in other cases, it would result in a loss of major revenue source. Listing fees is a major revenue source for the exchanges.