The list of these scrips, to be announced by SEBI soon, will cover all the 399 scrips which are now under compulsory demat trading for all institutionalinvestors but are not included in the list for all investors.It will also cover the scrips of the 233 companies which have already signed the agreement with either or both the depositories but are not included in any list announced by SEBI so far.

Besides the above there are 1300 scrips traded on one or more exchange that is NSE, CSE, DSE, ASE and Pune Stock Exchange, but not included in any list for dematerialised trading. These scrips would also be brought into the ambit of compulsory dematerialised trading by all investors in a phased manner beginning from the last Monday of September, 2000 in batches of around 200 scrips per month.

This would imply that by March 31, 2001 all the 1300 scrips would be covered. The complete lists of these scrips along with the schedule would be announced by Sebi shortly so that sufficient notice is available to the companies, investors and the market participants. BSE has agreed to ensure that all B1 and B2 scrips are also fully covered by end of March, 2001.

According to the earlier decision taken by Sebi, the number of scrips traded compulsorily in the dematerialised form for all investors and institutional investors would be 579 and 978 respectively by June 26, 2000.

The existing scheme for small investors to sell upto 500 shares in physical form through a special trading window provided by the exchange shall continue.

The working group on depositories discussing the issue of reduction in time gap between allotment of shares, listing and trading of securities felt that to have allotment, listing and trading simultaneously though desirable cannot be achieved immediately due to legal and operational issues. Besides the modalities also needed to be worked out.

A group comprising of representatives from NSE, BSE, CSE, DSE, Association of Mutual Funds of India, Association of Merchant Bankers of India, Registrars Association of India, NSDL and CDSL has been set up under the convenorship of Shri Pratip Kar, Executive Director, SEBI to examine the various issues involved.

The NSE and BSE have agreed to make available to depositories the surplus VSAT capacity of their members to tide over the problem of VSAT terminals shortage so that the participants and issuers are not put to any inconvenience.

To eliminate to and fro movement of share certificates sent for transfer and dematerialisation, Sebi had earlier approved a scheme in which the investors could simultaneously get the shares transferred and dematerialised.

Depositories informed that nearly 100 companies are now providing this facility as against about 10 companies in September 1999.

SEBI would give sufficient publicity to the scheme so that more investors could benefit from it. SEBI is also writing to the Registrars Association of India to advice their members and client companies to provide this facility to all investors.

The group felt that the market must move to delivery versus payment (DVP) system. For this it would be necessary that depositories be granted limited banking powers as available internationally. NSDL will prepare a paper on this subject, which could then be taken up RBI and the central government.The group reviewing the status of demat of securities noted that 93% of the securities delivered for settlement by value, at NSE and BSE are in demat form while the paper based workload at back offices of the brokers has decreased by 70 per cent to 75 per cent.

The total delivery orders for physical securities at BSE has come down from 1.35 Lakh to 35,000 per settlement. Around 1100 companies have signed agreements with the depositories. Value of demat shares in custody is currently around Rs 400,000 crore.

More than 26 lakh investors have opened accounts with the Depositories. Total number of DPs at NSDL and CDSL has also increased to 140 and 68 respectively.

The existing DPs are expanding their services to more and more locations through their branch offices and are establishing direct connectivity with the depositories.