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The total turnover of commodity bourses fell over 17% to Rs 58,98,170 crore till August 2013, mainly due to sluggish trade volumes in almost all items, according to sector regulator FMC.
The business at the 21 commodity exchanges stood at Rs 71,39,917 crore in the same period last year.
Much of the fall was in farm commodities, followed by bullion, metals and energy items, said the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) said while releasing its latest data.
The turnover from farm items fell by 37.42% to Rs 6,23,600 crore in the April-August period of the current fiscal from Rs 9,96,417 crore in the comparable period.
The business from gold and silver declined by 18.15% to Rs 26,66,863 crore from Rs 32,58,419 crore earlier.
The turnover from copper and zinc dropped by over 15% to Rs 11,10,078 crore in the review period from Rs 13,06,797 crore in the year-ago period.
The business from energy commodities also declined by five% to Rs 14,97,627 crore in the April-August period of the 2013-14 from Rs 15,78,281 crore in the year-ago period.
In August, the country's largest commodity bourse MCX made a business of Rs 7,46,302 crore, while the figure for NCDEX stood at Rs 98,666 crore.
It was Rs 11,320 crore for NMCE, Rs 4,431 crore for UCX, Rs 4,122 crore for ICEX Rs 2,756 crore for ACE.
Analysts and experts said the turnover at commodity bourses has been falling since July, following the imposition of commodity transaction tax (CTT) on the futures trading of non-farm and some processed food items.
CTT of 0.01% has been made effective from July 1 on the futures trading of non-agri commodities and processed foods. The government has exempted 23 agricultural commodities from the new tax.
There are 21 commodity bourses in the country, of which, MCX, NCDEX, NMCE, UCX, ICEX and ACE operate at national level.
