The primary market witnessed an extremely low level of activity for the 13th month in succession in July 1998 which saw only a single issue. A total of 37 issues were seen since July 1997. The dismal scenario has forced the corporate sector to either shelve or defer their fund raising plans. Funds raised by the manufacturing sector have fallen from 83 per cent in 1994-95 to nine per cent in the first four months of 1998-99.

However, FIs and private/PSU banks continued to assume a dominant role in the fund mobilisation exercise with their raisings rising from a meager four per cent in1994-95 to a massive 91 per cent in the four months, it says. Significant features during the first four months have been the monopoly of government in the capital market with a 88 per cent share and the dominance of debt offerings at 81 per cent of the total offerings. The IPO's have reduced drastically from a high of 1350 in 1995-96 to only 51 in 1997-98 and 7 in the first four months of the current fiscal. The dismal performance so far in 1998-99 indicates a gloomy picture for the balance period of 1998-99.

The number of public issue documents filed with Sebi for clearance has fallen from 87 per month in calender year 1996, 7 in calender year 1997 and 7 in the first four months of the fiscal 1998-99. Some of the equity issues lined up from public sector banks include PNB (Rs 500 crore), IOB (Rs 450 crore) and Vijaya Bank (Rs 360 crore). While private sector banks include IDBI Bank (Rs 150 crore), Nedungadi Bank (Rs 100 crore), Centurion Bank (Rs 34 crore), UTI Bank (Rs 74 crore) and Times Bank. On thedebt Front, public issue mobilisation plans for 1998-99 are from IDBI (Rs 5,000 crore), ICICI (Rs 3,000 crore) and PFC (Rs 500 crore). A combination of factors including investors' apathy consequent to the phenomenal losses in the 1993-95 period and lack of investor confidence in market practices have contributed to the present state of dismal affairs in the primary market.