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NCDEX plans to introduce electricity trading by Oct.

— PHOTO: PTI

DIVERSIFYING: R. Ramaseshan (left), Managing Director and CEO, NCDEX, with U. Kaushik, Chief Business Officer, interacting with the media in Kolkata on Saturday.

KOLKATA: National Commodity & Derivates Exchange Ltd (NCDEX) is planning to introduce electricity trading by October, its Chairman R. Ramaseshan said.

This would be done through an equal joint venture of NCDEX and National Stock Exchange (NSE). “We have received the in-principle nod of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and hope to launch in the first week of October,” he said.

Addressing his maiden press conference here on Saturday, Mr. Ramaseshan said NCDEX had informed its two overseas shareholders about the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) stipulation restricting foreign institutional investor (FII) holdings to five per cent. “We have informed them of the stipulation which requires the shareholding to be brought down to this level by June 2009”.

Of the Rs. 30-crore paid-up capital of NCDEX, two overseas bodies, Goldman Sachs Investment (Mauritius) and Intercontinental Exchange, have a holding of 7 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively. NSE, Nabard and LIC hold 15 per cent each while Crisil and IFFCO hold 12 per cent each.

The other shareholders include Punjab and National Bank and Canara Bank.

He said that within three days of launching coal futures, the exchange was handling about 800 tonnes of coal daily and it was targeting to increase this figure to 100 million tonnes annually within the next 12 months. “Globally perhaps we are the only one handling this commodity in this manner”.

While NCDEX was primarily focussed on agriculture handling 90 per cent of the country’s agricultural trading, it was now trying to diversify into non-agricultural commodities.

Besides coal, it has also introduced carbon contracts about five months back. NCDEX’s daily turnover was between Rs. 2,000 crore and Rs. 2,500 crore. To a query on a link between the current inflationary spiral and commodity exchanges, he said that there was no conclusive study to prove that such exchanges influence prices.

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