The issue of publication of consolidated or stand alone results by listed companies is not for SEBI alone to look at but the views of several others such as the RBI and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India will have to be sought, according to UK Sinha, Chairman, the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Tax relief & MF He said the tax relief for mutual fund linked retirement plans, announced by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Union Budget, would be within the overall Section 80C limit of ₹1.50 lakh and no additional tax relief window will be available for such an investment.

Responding to queries from newspersons in Coimbatore on Friday night, after a meeting on the role of capital markets in SME funding, on companies with subsidiaries giving prominence to consolidated results rather than standalone results on the basis of which EPS, PE ratio, dividend payout, etc, were decided, he said the ‘requirement for consolidated statement is in the interest of the investor’, it was in the interest of the shareholder. That is why it has been prescribed.

Referring to the issue of calculating EPS, share PE ratio based on stand alone results, Sinha said, “the whole question has to be studied not alone by SEBI” but by the ICAI, by the RBI, as “we have to go into an area where everybody is comfortable that this is something which is doable.” He pointed out that in the Budget the Government had announced that International Financial Reporting Standards will come into force from 2016. On matters of financial reporting he said “what we have in India is quite reasonable.”

Hurdles in SME listing Asked about the two issues limiting the listing of SMEs on the SME platform of stock exchanges – the minimum lot size of ₹1 lakh and 3-year market making requirement which appears to put off merchant bankers, the SEBI Chairman said when the platform was started, the requirement was not up to this extent and it was later found that the scheme did not succeed. He said “SEBI will have to balance” the market feedback and the need to protect the interests of the small investors.

Apart from Coimbatore, the regulator would be holding discussions with the SME sector in a few more places. After evaluating the feedback, he said “we are not averse to making certain changes in that.” But at this stage he did not want to commit himself as to what would be those changes.

Replying to a question as to how many SMEs from Coimbatore evinced interest in getting listed on the SME platform of the exchanges, Sinha said one issue was the fear of losing control over a family-owned company when it goes public, which he termed as “the fear of the unknown.” Getting listed was not an easy decision for any promoter and they had to be prepared for it. The purpose (of the meeting) was to create that awareness.

Sinha said, ‘a lot of people had excitement’ about the new platform and the dialogue among the parties involved would be ‘ongoing’. He said after 10 years of efforts, 68 SMEs have been listed and said the feedback would be ‘evaluated very closely’.

Ponzi schemes On the move to arm SEBI with powers to crackdown on Ponzi schemes, he said at least 16 States in India have legislations to protect the interest of the depositors. In States where they were not in force, the enactments would be made. The district authorities have powers to take punitive action. But if more than ₹100 crore had been raised and if they were not regulated by anybody else, then the responsibility would vest with SEBI which he called as a “very fair distribution of responsibility.”

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