``We have already applied to the food and consumer affairs ministry, seeking its approval to set up a multi-commodity futures exchange at Mumbai,'' Sea president Ajay Tandon told PTI this weekend on the sidelines of a national seminar on rice bran.

The decision to start a multi-commodity futures exchange was taken at the last meeting of the association held in Mumbai earlier this month, he said. Sea president said the association was hopeful of ministry's approval in three to six months time.

The ministry had last week invited proposals from associations and groups for setting up of forward trading exchanges in oilseeds, oils and oilmeals including rice bran, rapeseed/mustard and sunflower.

Other oilseeds, oils and oilseeds for which setting up of futures exchanges was allowed by thegovernment were groundnut, cotton seed, copra/coconut, sesamum and safflower.

New proposals including that of Sea would be considered for setting up of futures exchanges under the Forward Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1952, Tandon said. Sea has already appointed a Mumbai-based consultancy firm to conduct a pre-feasibility study before the exchange was formally set up, Sea president said.

Stating that it was too early to hazard a guess about the trade volume, Tandon said ``if the Soyabean Processors' Association of India (Sopa) can claim a trade turnover of Rs 10,000 crore annually, we expect much more as the exchange would be dealing in more commodities.'' India is estimated to have produced 25.3 million tonnes of oilseeds during 1998-99 including rapeseed/mustard crop of 6.44 million tonnes, 12 lakh tonnes of sunflower, 8.78 million tonnes of groundnut and 6.77 million tonnes of sunflower.

Sopa is set to formally kick of the soyabean futures exchange at Indore in Madhya Pradesh in September and hasalready stated that would also include rapeseed/mustard in the list of tradable items at the exchange.

Tandon said Sea would not find it difficult to raise the required amount to register the exchange and lay the basic infrastructure as it had a strong membership basis of over 1000 extraction units across the country.

``We would not find the funding part difficult as most of our members would be keen to register themselves as members at the exchange,'' he said.

Asked whether the association had the required expertise in conducting futures trading, Tandon said Sea would hire experts domestically and if need be from overseas.