As directed by Sebi, the exchange had imposed margins on select scrips ranging from 100 per cent to 40 per cent on over 100 counters, thus containing trading volumes on the bourse. The average daily volume has drifted to Rs 8 crore from Rs 20 crore on the bourse in the last settlement.

Despite heavy margins on technology scrips, the mood of the investor is upbeat and they are ready to pay any amount of margins, according to brokers here. "We feel the price bands are a major hindrance in the way of trading than margins", said a senior HSE broker.

The HSE brokers opined that there is a need for the market regulator to allow the exchange to relax the price bands over 8 per cent on either way to facilitate trading on the frozen counters after providing enough cooling- off period duringthe same trading day. According to sources, the market regulator is working out a formula, which will extend trading on the scrips which have touched the ceiling during the same trading day, provided there is genuine buying or selling on the counter.

Meanwhile, HSE has reduced the number of companies on margin list from 118 to 60 for the current settlement period. Prominently, six companies still on 100 per cent margin include Danlaw Technologies, Dr Ramayyas Pramila Hospitals (listed only on HSE), Fortune Informatics, Srico Systems (recently changed the name as Bathina Technologies) and Subex Systems. In a bid to further strengthen the surveillance mechanism, the bourse has decided to group the scrips on the basis of A,B,C categories. BSE `A' group, Demat and Nifty 50 will be under Group A; all the scrips not in `A' Group and also not falling in Group `C' will be classified as `B` Group; and all the "Z" category scrips announced by BSE will be under `C' Group.