Turnover of commodity exchanges fell 51 per cent to Rs 3.43 lakh crore in the first fortnight of March due to decline in volumes across the board except farm products.
Turnover of all the 17 commodity exchanges offering futures trading in the country, including MCX, NCDEX and NMCE, was Rs 6.96 lakh crore in the same period last year, according to the Forward Markets Commission data.
Trading volumes on the bourses have been hit after the imposition of commodity transaction tax. Besides, investors are also trading cautiously after the Rs 5,500-crore payment crisis came to light on National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) a few months ago.
Turnover of commexes from April 1 to March 15 during the financial year 2013-14 has fallen 40 per cent to Rs 98.57 lakh crore against Rs 164.79 lakh crore in the year-ago period.
According to FMC data, there was a drop in the turnover of all the major commodities except agriculture.
Turnover from bullion witnessed a maximum fall of over 62 per cent to Rs 1.16 lakh crore during March 1-15 from Rs 3.07 lakh crore in the year-ago period.
Similarly, business from metals like copper declined 60 per cent to Rs 59,345 crore from Rs 1.48 lakh crore. Turnover from energy commodities fell 54 per cent to Rs 73,715 crore from Rs 1.60 lakh crore.
However, there was an increase in the turnover of farm items by over 17 per cent to Rs 94,680 crore during March 1-15 from Rs 80,913 crore in the year-ago period.
To boost the trading volumes, FMC has given freedom to national-level bourses to charge different transaction fee. It has also allowed them to levy different transaction fee based on delivery and non-delivery based contracts.