The monthly volumes or alternatively monthly total number of contracts traded has recorded a rise by more than 7 times, from a meagre 1,191 at the time of launch in June 2000 to around 9,208 in December 2000. The volumes have reached a high of 9,892 in November 2000.

The monthly total traded value has gone up by more than 6 times, from Rs 35 crore to around Rs 237 crore during the same period.

It can be mentioned that NSE, in order to promote derivatives trading, has started conducting investor education/awareness programmes throughout the nation. This has resulted in an increase in the number of members, with the monthly turnover of more than Rs 1 crore, from 21 in June 2000 to 36 in December 2000. It is also noticed that around 61 per cent of members have a monthly turnover exceeding Rs 50 lakh.

Many of the brokers feel that the introduction of rolling settlement in A group stocks would boost the futures market. The cash market, which has a five day settlement period, has the futures components embedded in it. Once the rolling settlement is introduced there would be a better price discovery in the cash market and this would help people to take a view on the futures market by trading in derivatives.

On the derivative segment on Tuesday, the top 5 members contributed about 64 per cent of the total turnover in December 2000. The number of active members trading have also increased slowly. Considering the city-wise distribution of the turnover, Mumbai accounted for 65 per cent of the turnover followed by Delhi with 24 per cent. Chennai and Kolkata accounted for only 3.6 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively.

NSE, along with India Index Services Limited (IISL), has conducted roadshows in many cities and towns for educating the investors about index futures and the S&P CNX Nifty Index. The emphasis of these roadshows was to familiarise people with the benefits of using index futures.