Capital and commodity market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI has formed a high-level commodity advisory committee headed by Ramesh Chand, Member, Niti Aayog.

The 8-10 member committee will advise SEBI on framing policy to address various issues plaguing the commodity exchanges.

The committee will also have the CEOs of three commodity exchanges – MCX, NCDEX and NMCE – as members, besides Gopal Krishna Nayak from the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru and another candidate from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, sources said.

G Chandrashekar, a commodity market expert with 30 years of experience, has also been appointed as independent member.

Incidentally, Chandrashekar was involved in framing guidelines during the regime of erstwhile commodity market regulator Forward Markets Commission which was merged with SEBI last September.

Depending on the members’ availability, the first meeting of the advisory committee will be held soon, sources added.

The committee will look into the functioning of commodity market and suggest measure to improve transparency, integrity and operational efficiency.

It will also study the role being played by the intermediaries besides improving the participation of hedgers and allowing institutional investors’ investment in commodity markets.

The issues relating to delivery of commodity on the exchanges will also be taken up by the advisory committee, it is learnt.

The integrity of commodity futures trading has come under cloud after NCDEX last month abruptly banned futures trading in all castor contracts due to suspected price rigging by few members.

Following an independent investigation, it suspended four members from taking fresh position after it found them involved in manipulating castorseed trades.

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