Shimla: Despite having one of the largest per capita income in the country, people in Himachal Pradesh have very low investment and exposure in securities and mutual funds which has prompted Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to open its regional office in Shimla, said U. K Sinha, Chairman in a meeting with this reporter after inaugurating its office here today.
Speaking to Hill Post, UK Sinha, Chairman SEBI said that during the last three years SEBI had decided to expand its presence from five larger cities to all the state capitals and in the process the Shimla office was 21st regional centre opened in the country. The investing public, he said will now not be required to rush to Delhi or other big cities to get their complaints redressed.
The opening of regional office at Shimla, he said, will also boost the morale of the public and they will be drawn to legitimate investment practices. The major objective of SEBI is to redress the complaints of the investors as well also to educate them in the financial market. In the process, he told, that SEBI had organised more than 45,000 training programmes which was much more than any other financial company.
One of the major concerns of SEBi, he told, was to educate the investors from falling into gullible pongee schemes out to fleece people with offers of high return on their capital. The area of work of SEBI, he said was to regulate the investments of the public as per the mandate given to them by the Parliament of the country.
SEBI Chairman informed that all the regional centres in the country were equipped with training facilities and normally each centre conducts two or three training sessions for atleast 40-45 investors every week.
These centres, he told, had resource persons to educate the public. Not only at the centre, SEBI has deployed resource persons in other cities of the states. SEBI officials, he added, will also go to the government offices as well educational institutions to impart education on safe investment.
The objective is to not only to promote investment but also to redress their complaints against the brokers, as well as the companies regarding dividends, rights.non receipt of Annual reports etc, said Sinha. He told that the role of SEBI was to educate the investors about safe investment options as well as to guide them about the legal or illegal schemes in the market.
On the use of social media, Sinha told that SEBI was already making use of this media for reaching out to the public and also obtaining feedback.
As part of its endeavour to showcase the well regulated securities market of India as well as to spread the message of financial literacy and investor awareness, SEBI, he told was also participating in trade fairs having large footfalls in major cities.
Having moved on after spearheading corporate communications of a large public sector undertaking, its time to give vent to the creative urges that lay suppressed for long
