NSEL defaults for eighteenth time, pays Rs 11 crore against Rs 174 crore
Defaulting for the eighteenth straight time, beleaguered bourse National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) paid about Rs 11.50 crore on Tuesday against the scheduled payment amount of Rs 174.72 crore.
With this payout, NSEL has so far settled about Rs 263.50 crore against dues worth Rs 5,600 crore to 13,000 investors.
NSEL, which is engulfed in a payment crisis, had previously defaulted for 17 times. The spot commodity bourse was unable to make any payment on its seventh and thirteenth payouts.
"The total amount being disbursed today is around Rs 11.50 crore," an NSEL spokesperson said.
Topworth Steels & Power has made a payment of about Rs 9 crore to the exchange and Rs 1.52 crore has been received from N K proteins, while 23 of other investors have defaulted, he added.
The remaining Rs 1 crore has been recovered by the economic offences wing (EoW) of Mumbai police, the spokesperson said.
He added that the bourse is still awaiting commodity market regulator Forward Markets Commission's (FMC) approval for disbursement of Rs 11 crore in the escrow account received from defaulting member Mohan India last week.
NSEL had availed a bridge loan of Rs 177.23 crore from its promoter Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) to make payments on priority basis to small investors.
NSEL, which is promoted by Jignesh Shah-led FTIL, is facing the problem of settling dues to 148 members after it suspended trade on July 31 following government direction.
NSEL's decision to suspend trading followed a Consumer Affairs Ministry directive asking the bourse not to launch any new contracts till further order as it found violations of government norms in trading at the exchange.
The bourse had earlier said it planned to settle all the dues within 30 weeks, by paying Rs 174.72 crore for first 20 weeks followed by Rs 86.02 crore in next 10 weeks.
