The systems are in place, the gazette notification has been duly made, themandatory inspection by the Sebi is also in place - but the actual tradingis yet to commence.

According to Ravi Narain, deputy managing director of NSE, "we expect tocommence sometime in the beginning of June."

Sebi, he pointed out, was still vetting the registrations of the members,who have signed up for the trading and the screening process is expected tobe completed by the end of this month. Around 600 members have signed upwith NSE. However, not all of them might be granted approval and NSE expectsto start trading with around 400 members. NSE claims that the exchange hasbeen ready for derivatives trading since the last four years. BSE, which waspre-empted by NSE over Internet trading, has been working overtime to get aheadstart in futures trading on its exchange. Indications are, however, thatit would not be able to meet its latest May 15 deadline and is most likelyto commence by June.

BSE vice-president, Deena Mehta told The Financial Express that theexchange was fully geared up. She, however, did not give any firm date forcommencing derivates trading.

BSE is expecting to start trading with an initial base of around 200-oddmembers, Mehta said. In January this year, BSE had indicated a deadline ofFebruary 15 for trading to start. The exchange could not put theinfrastructure in place by then. Narain explained that since the futurescontract (as they are structured now) would expire on the last Thursday ofthe month, it did not make sense to commence trading from the middle of anymonth. "Beginning of June would be ideal," he said.

Both the exchanges are starting out with Index-based futures - for BSE itwould be its 30-scrip Sensitive index while in the case of NSE it is themore broader Nifty.