BSE may come up with IPO by May'07; Govt mulling FDI in exchanges

New Delhi, Sep 6 (UNI) The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is mulling over its Intial Public Offer (IPO) even as the government is examining the possibility of allowing FDI in Indian bourses.

''The BSE has set May 2007 as deadline to bring an IPO and will keep up to that,'' exchange Managing Director and CEO Rajnikant Patel said here today.

Meanwhile, the Central Government is in the process of finalising the policy and it can come out with something on it soon, a senior official in the Finance Ministry said.

''We are in the process of finalising our inputs on the policy.

Once we are finished with it, the FDI desk will decide on the final version, on which the government will take the final decision,'' he added.

In order to provide a service platform to its members, investors and issuers, the BSE also inaugurated a regional office here, which will be followed by one in Kolkata and three more in other centres of the country.

''Our endeavour is to expand our reach in terms of enhancing our services across the nation and addressing the needs of our members, investors and other market intermediaries at their doorsteps,'' Mr Patel said.

The first-of-its-kind centre in India, the BSE regional office will provide a slew of services to its stakeholders, however no trading will be allowed from this office.

The centre will work as a single window to answer all queries related to stock market besides providing information and redress grievances of investors and organising financial literacy programmes.

It will also house a library where investors can get access to newspapers, periodicals and books on capital market for reference.

In addition to this, it will provide technical connectivity to market participants for easy, economical, faster and reliable reach to local members through local leased lines.

''We will also propose to expand our on-line training and facilitate certification through the BSE Training Institute at this centre,'' BSE CEO informed reporters.

The response arbitration process, for which, until now, the members had to go to Mumbai, will also be initiated from here soon, he said adding, in few days listing of firms may also be processed from the regional office.

UNI PKS PV RAI2003