Market players, including stock exchanges, can no longer say ``we will see when it comes''. Last month, Sebi sent out circulars to all the stock exchanges directing them to submit their report on the millenium problem. by October 20. That's not all. After the initial submissions, the exchanges will have to submit a monthly report on the follow-up measures initiated at their end for members who are lagging behind in the implementation of the Y2K project.

Sebi's sense of urgency is understandable. The Y2K bomb is ticking away. TheIndian government has set a deadline of June 1999 to comply with the requirement. The Y2K problem, or the millennium bug, spells potential trouble for computers that use only two digits to denote years in their programming. The space-saving date references, written at a time when computer memory was costly, could wreak havoc on data or disrupt computers which fail to understand the 2000 date.

Computer systems embedded with a six-digit date (or two-digit year) will fail to recognise the eight-digit configuration when the world wakes up to the year 2000. If not reconfigured, the computers will read 01/01/00 for January 1, 1900. If ignored, trading will come to a halt, the losses will be widespread and the securities market clock will be set back.

The global expenditure linked to Y2K solutions runs into hundreds of billions of dollars, the conservative estimate being $ 600 billion. They say the impact on companies, banks, utilities and other large computer users could be serious enough to shake economies.While the rest of the world has already taken giant steps on a war-footing to beat the clock, the securties industry in India is now taking its first steps in this direction. Sebi has circulated a questionaire, which reads more like an awareness programme. One of the questions reads like this: ``Is your organisation's Board of Directors aware of the Year 2000 risk?''

But Sebi now means business. It has set a 45-day deadline for reports which will only help the regulators assess the extent of the problem. According to the Sebi time-table, exchanges should have circulated the questionnaire to their members by September 1. By the end of the month members have to submit their responses and before October 20, exchanges have to submit the report to Sebi. Thereafter, exchanges have to submit monthly reports, providing details about follow-up measures.

The National Stock Exchange, which has over 1700 terminals in 206 cities, is also planning to circulate a time-table to its members. The exchange itself is in theprocess of updating all its internal systems and software (trading and clearing systems) supplied to members to obviate the problems associated with the Year 2000. Realising that this is not sufficient to meet the Y2K requirements, NSE has said that all other systems, particularly members' back-office systems, which interface with the NSE systems, should also be Y2K compliant in order to avoid business disruptions.

It's not a one-off effort for the affected. Once the reconfiguration is through, the system has to be tested and confirm whether it works while inter-acting with other systems. The time left: one year, 119 days, nine hours, two minutes and forty seconds. In the US, way back in July 1997, SEC chairman Arhtur Lewiit in a testimony before the Senate sub-committee on financial affairs outlined his department's programme for the Y2K awareness.

Now, SEC has made it compulsory for all public companies in the US to provide Y2K disclosures in their financial statements.

No such plans have beenformulated for Indian companies/investment bankers, many of whom still remain oblivious to the Y2K time-bomb. Banks and financial institutions are already on their toes. As many as 90 banks begun work. HDFC has set a deadline of achieving compliance by the end of 1998, while in the corporate sector Hindustan Lever has set a deadline of October 31.