While admitting that things had gone wrong at the exchange with a few members exceeding their gross exposure limits, former BSE president MG Damani and executive director RC Mathur said they were committed to improving the risk-management system by unveiling an on-line surveillance system. It may be recalled that this was one of the recommendations put forth by the inter-exchange surveillance committee way back in April, where it was decided that the BSE and NSE would kick off with on-line surveillance from June. However, according to market sources, the BSE's schedule was postponed on account of the exchange's policy to obtain the software at a lower cost. "Once the monitoring is done online, checks can be applied at anytime," said Damani, and added that certain pre-determined parameters would be fed into the system to enable such monitoring. Meanwhile, the exchange has announced that the pay-out with respect to settlement number 12 has been completed on Monday without using the trade guarantee fund (TGF) or the broker's contingency fund.

BSE president pays Rs 30 lakh margin

BSE president JC Parekh is said to have paid a margin of Rs 30 lakh in the first week of April. According to Mathur, the president was asked to pay a similar amount on two other occasions in view of his exposure in various scrips.

While this act confirmed that the exchange which is run by brokers is administered by a set of officers whose decision making is in no way influenced by the brokers, it also adds fuel to the rumours that the president's broking outfit had made huge positions at the counters of Pentafour Software and Satyam Computers.