"Currently, stocks of 281 companies are being traded in this window and 53 companies of them that have established connectivity with the depositories will be shifted to normal trading segment, where deliveries could be made in either physical or dematerialised form, with effect from December 26, 2000," Sebi sources told The Financial Express on Friday.

These 53 stocks would be put under compulsory demat after three months (from March 26, 20001) as per the new regulations issued by the regulator recently.Meanwhile, stocks of another 168 companies would get added to the list of stocks under the "trade for trade" window of SEs from the settlement period commencing on or immediately after December 11. With this, the number of scrips under "trade for trade" window would go up to 449 by December 11, which would once again come down by 53 stocks to 396 from December 26.

These stocks were among the 275 companies, which were supposed to have signed up with the depositories by November 27, 2000. Only 104 companies have signed up before the deadline and these companies would be brought under compulsory demat with effect from February 26, 2001. Another three companies, which were wrongly included in the list of companies to be brought under demat with their changed names, were removed from the list, the sources said.

In October 2000, Sebi has decided that three months of gap between the date of establishing connectivity with depositories and date of commencement of compulsory demat trading in a scrip. And in line with this decision, the regulator had advised that the dates mentioned in its circular dated May 29, 2000 be treated as the date for signing up with the depositories. The May 29 circular lists the staggered schedule for bringing over 2,000 companies under demat by March 2001.