MUMBAI, Dec 23: The Securities & Exchange Board of India has recommended a set of stringent performance standards that need to be complied with by the registrars.

The set of recommendations were unveiled by R Chandrashekharan, consultant to SEBI, and seconded by SEBI division chief, Satyanarayan, at a meeting of the Registrars Association of India (Rain) on December 16.

Registrars who attended the meeting however said that it would be difficult for them to maintain such high standards. The SEBI official reiterated that registrars need to set up better infrastructure and ensure compliance on the performance standard as stipulated in the note put forth by Chandrashekharan.

The performance standard prepared by Chandrasekharan has listed out strict time limits like return of certificates after transfer within 21 days from date of receipt by the share and transfer agent and one day for acknowledgement of transfer.

Other important stipulations include that the procedure for completion of the entire transfer should be completed within 30 days if the transfer deeds have been received 7 days in advance of the book closure date. The note also stipulates that change of address should be completed within three days while despatch of warrants should be completed one day prior to the due date.

The registrars present at the meeting felt some of these stipulations to be quite unrealistic. The registrars have stated that the time period of only one day for dispatch of acknowledgment of transfers was impossible as also despatch of dividend warrants within the stipulated time.

What has further confused registrars is the fact that Price Waterhouse is also, under the FIRE project, helping Rain to develop a procedure manual which will list out about 500 activities which are carried out by the registrars. The manual will highlight the activities, right from the point of accepting the share certificates till the time of sending it back with the completion of the transfer procedure. This manual will be accompanied by reasonable time schedules within which these activities can be done.

``The Price Waterhouse consultants have personally visited many registrars and prepared this manual on the basis of these visits. They have also taken into consideration the volumes handled by the registrars and if there are some huge volumes, the time period involve can go up,'' said a registrar source.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.