While India's equity market has made progress, the corporate bond market still lags behind. In order to address this gap, I propose to —

OTC derivatives: Over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives play a crucial role in mitigating the risks of corporates, banks and other financial entities.

There is, however, some ambiguity regarding the legality of OTC derivative contracts, which has inhibited their growth. I, therefore, propose to take measures to provide for clear legal validity of such contracts.

Stock Exchange Corporatization: The Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, as amended recently, requires all stock exchanges to be corporatised and de-mutualised. Three stock exchanges are not yet corporatised.

In order to facilitate their corporatisation, I propose to grant a one-time exemption to them from stamp duty on the notional transfer of assets.

Stamp Duty on Commercial Paper: In order to create a level playing field for banks and non-bank entities to issue commercial paper, and to bring the Indian commercial paper market closer to international standard, I propose to rationalise the stamp duty so that it applies uniformly regardless of the issuing entity.

Gold units: Ten years ago we embarked on the process of ensuring that gold inflows are through the official channels alone. I believe that we are now in a position to introduce `gold units' and create a market for such units.

I propose to ask SEBI to permit, in consultation with RBI, mutual funds to introduce Gold Exchange Traded Funds with gold as the underlying asset, in order to enable any household to buy and sell gold in units for as little as Rs 100.

Such units could be traded in the same manner as units of mutual funds.

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