Regulator gets richer, fee income doubles

The market regulator is getting richer. During 2007-08, the total amount of fees and other charges received by the SEBI almost doubled to Rs 397.5 crore un-audited as against Rs 200.8 crore in 2006-07, an increase of 98 per cent. According to the Sebi annual report, the largest amount of Rs 84.9 crore was collected from offer documents and prospectus filed, followed by Rs 65.6 crore as takeover fees and Rs 64.3 crore as fees from derivatives. During 2006-07, Sebi had collected Rs 52 crore as takeover fees, the largest under any head that year, while the realisation from offer document fees was Rs 34.45 crore. The higher fee collection was mostly due to increased activity in the capital market and the corporate sector. During 2007-08, the report said 124 companies accessed the primary market, for public and rights issues, and raised Rs 87,029 crore as against mopping up Rs 33,508 crore by the same number of companies in the previous year.