It is learnt that the finance ministry and SEBI are both keen to get going on this front in a bid to check the increasing volatility in the country's markets coupled with astronomically high levels of speculative trades.

SEBI, it is learnt, was keen to hold the meeting early next week but the committee chairman MR Mayya has conveyed to the regulator that he would be available only on November 25. The National Stock Exchange, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Calcutta Stock Exchange and the Delhi Stock Exchange are the four top bourses where a common settlement is proposed to be adopted.

"This issue has been hanging fire for long enough and we plan tosort it out this time around. We expect to bring in the measure by convincing the top five stock exchanges on the need to adopt a uniform settlement cycle," a top SEBI source said.

Mayya confirmed that a meeting of the group has been convened to see whether uniform settlements can be ushered in the country's markets. "The committee members have expressed divergent views in past meetings. Some have felt that the volumes on the bourses will come down significantly if uniform settlements were adopted, while others have felt that investors at large will be more comfortable with this mechanism and would be in the overall interest of investors. We will have to strike a balance," Mayya said.

He however, declined to comment on whether the committee would clear the issue in this meeting. "It would be premature at this stage to comment on what the committee would decide," Mayya said.

Highly-placed sources said the government is keen to bring about structural changes in the settlement cycles and it feels that bythe time rolling settlements are brought about across the market, uniform settlements should be brought in. This will help end the huge arbitrating business which takes place with speculators shifting their positions from one exchange to another at the end of a settlement.

Even though the finance ministry has been pushing SEBI to bring in rolling settlements, it is felt that this will not happen until there is total dematerialised trading. It will take another year for most of the top stocks to brought under the demat mode. It may in fact take about two years for the entire market to move to the depository fold. This, the ministry feels is too long a time to wait to end excessive speculation.

The issue of uniform settlements has been hanging fire all along owing to lack of consensus among stock exchanges on first the need for such a system and second the period of settlement.

Each exchange has been insisting that its settlement cycle is the best and well accepted among its investors and hence should befollowed. The two exchanges which really matter, NSE and BSE too have stuck to their guns, on not shifting their cycles.

The breakthrough, according to SEBI sources, has come with NSE relenting somewhat by saying that it would not mind shifting its settlement cycle provided atleast the top five stock exchanges are brought into the ambit of uniform settlements.