Ludhiana bourse to organise investment training classes

For educating masses on investment-related issues, the Ludhiana Stock Exchange (LSE), which caters to the needs of investors in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, the Union Territory of Chandigarh, and Jammu and Kashmir, has been organising a series of investor awareness workshops since March 2003.

These workshops are a part of Sebi's Securities Market Awareness Campaign launched by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on January 17, 2003, in New Delhi.

Giving further details, H S Sidhu, Executive Director of LSE said that in 2003-04 and 2004-05, SEBI gave LSE a target of 117 such workshops but 121 workshops were organized.

"In this fiscal, 50 workshops have been organized. The main reason behind the start of these workshops was that the number of 'vanishing companies' was increasing and majority of the investors were losing their money to such companies. Every person wants to know about the right company to invest in but most of them end up investing in the wrong company. So the SEBI asked us to organize Investor Awareness Workshops in all big and small cities of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Union Territory of Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir. In the year 2006-07, we plan to organize 50 such workshops."

More than 40 persons attend each workshop of two-hour duration and it costs the LSE Rs 4,000 to organize each workshop.

"People from all walks of life like doctors, teachers, people from armed forces and many more attend these workshops. In our workshop held in Una (Himachal Pradesh) even cricketers Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh attended it. We make sure that in our lectures, the investors are made aware of the market trends, their duties, their rights and other related issues. One should invest in the money and not play with his money. Main question asked by people during the workshops is related to the 'vanishing companies'. In reply we tell them that ignorance of law is no excuse."

Jagjit Singh Arneja, incharge of LSE's training and education cell said, "We always recommend that they should obtain written documents regarding investment, read and understand such documents, find out the costs and benefits associated with the investment, assess risk return profile of the investment, know the liquidity and safety aspects of the investment, deal only through a SEBI-registered intermediary, seek clarifications about the intermediary or investment and explore alternate options in case something goes wrong with the investment."

Arneja added, "There are many unaccounted and unregistered investors in the region, investing in securities market without having basic knowledge and education about the market which results in losses. One should invest in knowledge before investing in securities market," he added.