Mr Rathi said that in-principle, the exchange has agreed to the proposal that all liquid stocks traded on the exchange should be included in the BLESS list. He, however, did not give any specific timeframe by which this change would take place.

The BSE president had already indicated while formally announcing the launch of BLESS that the exchange was planning to bring all liquid stocks of B1 and B2 group to the stock-lending mechanism. Shifting of all these stocks may be based on the criterion like market capitalisation and frequency of trade of that stock which may be decided by the exchange over a period of time, he added.

BSE brokers are of the opinion that there are some disparities prevailing in MCFS and ALBM of both the premier stock exchanges. With the introduction of BLESS, the BSE has made an attempt to do away with one of the disparities with ALBM - that of carry forward margins. But one more drawback of MCFS has to be overcome to make BLESS look identical to ALBM, ie, expanding the BLESS list. The NSE permits ALBM in 175 stocks while the BSE's "A" group has only 141 stocks in its list. This mismatch will have to be overcome if BLESS is to be made a "blessing" for the BSE members, brokers said.

BSE broker Pradeep Doshi said BSE has plans to introduce scores of products in the days to come, including expanding of rolling settlement to major stocks, introduction of futures trading, stock options, etc. ``Ultimately, we are heading towards the system of Big Board and Small Board prevailing in US stock markets. We may see "A" and B1 group merging together to make Big Board and B2 and Z group clubbing together to make Small Board,'' he said.

With BLESS being introduced, it will pave the way for westernised system of trading. More and more stocks will be covered under rolling mode. This will also provide more depth to the market as more stocks will be made available for lending and borrowing. This will also increase the turnover of the market which will be able to attract more funds from the institutional investors, he added.

A section of brokers feels that with the NSE and BSE coming on equal footing as far as their stock lending and borrowing mechanisms are concerned, the recently-listed media stocks like Balaji Telefilms, Mukta Arts, Padmalaya Telefilms, and Pritish Nandy Communications and others, which are actively traded on the bourses, may get a berth in these lists in the coming days.