SEBI introduces IMSS to further improve surveillance: Damodaran

Kolkata, Dec 17 (UNI) Recently introduced "Integrated Market Surveillance System"(IMSS) by the Securites and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) would ensure a "paradigm shift" in the process of surveillance, carried out till recently by the country's major stock exchanges, SEBI Chairman M Damodaran has said.

Speaking to reporters during a SEBI sponsored workshop for financial journalists here yesteday, Mr Daomdaran and SEBI member T C Nair, however, made it clear in no uncertain terms that IMSS would in no way be a substitute for the present system, but would work as a supplementary to one another.

They said Indian regulatory authority was the second such institution in the world after Australia which had introduced IMSS, as it was very sophisticated in terms of technology application for detecting fraudaulent financial transactions and tracking down every inidividual who might possibly behind them, at the earliest.

SEBI had signed an agreement with an Australian firm and HCL Technologies Limited for introducing the state of the art surveillance system in Indian stock markets, Mr Damodaran said adding the system was fine tuned to generate basic alerts and prepare reports on the basis of pre-defined parametres.

IMSS would also provide SEBI the capability to analyse information on market transactions imediately and develop parametres that would in turn generate alerts highlighting abnormal market movements, the SEBI Chairman informed adding that, however, the primary responsiblity of overall surveillance would continue to remain vested with the Stock Exchanges as before.

He also informed that in order to disseminate information to the general investors, the SEBI had decided to further strenthen its local offices and encourage more and more people to use its websites.

Coming down heavily on a section of print and electronic media for allegedly misreporting some of the facts and thereby creating undesirable ripples in the market in several cases, Mr Damodaran urged the media to be more careful, responsible and better conversant with the latest SEBI regulations while reporting on and about Indian capital market.

The day long workshop, attended by a large number of Kolkata-based journalists, was addressed by the top brass from SEBI including its Executive Directors R.K.Nair and M.S.Roy, Whole time member T C Nair, and Officers of Special Duty (OSD) R Ravichandran and Professor G Sethu on various SEBI rules and regulations besides its operational methodologies.

Yesterday's workshop was the third in the line after New Delhi and Chennai, while another would be organised in Mumbai soon.

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