U K Sinha, Chairman of SEBI, said that whole IPO process is under review and there is a group working on that, all for safeguarding the interests of investors. Speaking to media persons in Chennai he said ‘We have set up a group. The group has started working. The idea is to make fund raising more efficient by way of cost and time,’ As part of the revamp, Sinha would ensure that the intermediaries — the book running lead managers — played a greater role to ensure adherence to timeliness, and hence quicker IPO clearances.

The prospective changes in the IPO process would certainly improve the efficiency of the markets and make them fairer to investors. “SEBI wants mutual fund industry to float less and less newer schemes and the national strategy on financial control is in close coordination with the RBI towards merging all similar schemes,’’ he said “There are moves to introduce certain proposals for long-term investments on pension fund and mutual fund, etc.’’ he added.

“SEBI is thinking that financial literacy should be provided at school level on the lines of some of the developing and developed countries so that the intricacies of the market can be brought into the curriculum, of course in the form of a separate stream for people trying to enter the security market,’’ Sinha remarked.