'No ban on investment via Participatory Notes'

Mumbai/New Dehi, Oct 17: Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram today ruled out any banning on the investment via Participatory Notes (PN) and said that the Securities and Exchange Board of India"s (SEBI) proposal on the PN is to moderate investment coming from abroad.

Welcoming investment via the PN, Chidambaram said that he was surprised to see that the certain section of media was raising alarm over the performance of the stock markets, adding, there is no need to raise alarm.

The Finance Minister went on to say that the move is the culmination of the measures discussed between the SEBI, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Central Government.

The Sensex opened with a negative gap of 1,014 points at 18,038 in the backdrop of (SEBI) discussion paper on the participatory notes (PN).

The trading at BSE has been stopped for an hour.

Top losers among the BSE 30 scrips include Reliance Energy (down 18 per cent), Reliance Communication (down 15.9 per cent), ICICI Bank (down 11.8 per cent), NTPC (down 11.8 per cent), BHEL (down 11.7 per cent) and Reliance Industries (down 11.3 per cent).

The NSE Nifty opened 284 points lower to 5384. The index is now down 524 points at 5144.

ANI>