The combined turnover of commodity exchanges fell 25 per cent to Rs 65.68 lakh crore in the first six months of 2013-14 due to a sharp decline in trading volume in most commodities.
According to the Forward Markets Commission, the turnover stood at Rs 87.62 lakh crore during April-September period of 2012-13 fiscal.
Maximum fall in business was seen in agriculture items, followed by bullion, metals and energy commodities.
Turnover from futures trading in agriculture items fell 37.16 per cent to Rs 7,47,102 crore during April-September this fiscal from Rs 11,88,870 crore in the same period last year, according to FMC data.
Similarly, turnover from bullion dropped 27 per cent to Rs 29.62 lakh crore from Rs 40.61 lakh crore, while the turnover from metals declined 24 per cent to Rs 12.20 lakh crore from Rs 16.09 lakh crore.
Turnover from energy commodities like crude oil too fell little over 14 per cent to Rs 16.27 lakh crore in the first six months of this fiscal compared with Rs 19.02 lakh crore in the year-ago period.
There are 21 commodity exchanges in the country, of which six of them operate at the national level. They include MCX, NCDEX, NMCE, UCEX, ACE and ICEX.