Futures trading not banned in any commodity: Govt

Futures trading is not banned in any commodity, the government said today.
Replying to a question whether the government has imposed a ban on futures trading in sugar, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said "No, sir".
"Futures trading is not banned in any commodity. Futures trading is permitted in 113 commodities as notified under Section 15 of the Forward Contract Regulation Act, 1952 (FCRA)," Sinha said in the written reply to the Lok Sabha.
Separately commodity market regulator FMC's Chairman Ramesh Abhishek said the suspension on futures trading in three commodities -- tur, urad and rice -- was revoked in March-April this year.

He clarified that there was no ban on these three commodities and only trading was suspended.
Abhishek said that a few commodity exchanges have submitted proposals to launch contracts in some of these commodities, but the Commission is yet to take a decision on this.

The minister submitted the list of 113 commodities notified under Section 15 of FCRA. He also gave details of additional 21 commodities, which are neither notified under Section 15 nor prohibited under Section 17 of the FCRA but are permitted for futures trading.
"Forward/Futures trading in a commodity is a mechanism for price discovery and price risk management and is useful to the economy including the farmers and consumers," Sinha said.

The trading in 'futures' provides guidance to sellers (farmers/growers/processors) and buyers (consumers) of agricultural commodities in planning ahead and in financing, marketing and storage of commodities, he added.