According to ASE president Atul Doshi, the need for a new software has arisen as the existing one, provided by Tata-IBM on behalf of EFA-Canada, proved to be far from adequate. At present, about 190 out of total 304 members, trade scrips with an average volume of Rs 110 crores daily. Till recently, he said, investors from Gujarat contributed to about one-third of the total capital market.

Talking to newsmen on Thursday, Doshi said the ASE had amicably parted ways with Tata-IBM but the latter continued to support the system till an alternative vendor was found. He said the ASE was weighing the performance of the respective bidders -- CMC at BSE and other regional exchanges, TCS at NSE and BgSE, and Wipro at Delhi.

He said that the Securities& Exchange Board of India (SEBI) approval for Trade Guarantee Fund is likely to come in a fortnight, as a pre-requisite for demat trading, for which a corpus fund of Rs 40 crores has already been created.

Doshi firmly believed that the capital market was more attractive than other alternatives, but for the complacency of successive governments to ensure greater transparency in the transactions. With this end in view, a public lecture by Unit Trust of India (UTI) chairman PS Subramanyam has been arranged here on "Rebuilding investors' confidence in capital market" here on November 14.