A long week-end and a mock trading session on January 1 give market players enough time to tackle any eventuality.

So for the bourses, the clock actually starts ticking from Monday, January 3. This is so because all the major exchanges will have December 30 as their last trading day. BSE has already set the timetable to ensure that on December 30 the badla session is also completed, instead of the normal session on a Saturday. The exchanges will remain closed on December 31.

The markets regulator has directed all the exchanges to conduct a mock trading session on January 1. There will also be a mock settlement session on that day. The markets have one more day, January 2, which is a Sunday to tackle any hitch in trading.

However, both the leading exchanges, NSE and BSE have tested their systems for compliance successfully. The NSE has two trading systems, one at Mumbai and the other at Pune, and also has three data storage systems. Over the last one-and-a-half years, all its systems have been made Y2K compliant. The BSE on its part has run a mock trading session with February 29 and March 4, 2000 successfully.

But just in case...! ``Relax we have an army of clerks and may be we can continue mock trading for a couple of days more,'' was how a broker quipped.