Sunday, January 8 2006 19:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Ahmedabad: Announcing a new year gift for small investors, chairman of Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) today (Jan 8,2006) said that the market regulator is soon going to introduce a new model to protect small investors from scams.

"We are going to introduce the new model this month which will protect small investors from scams. It should be a new year gift to small investors," Damodaran, who was in the city to deliver a lecture at a college function, said.

The SEBI chairman during his lecture on 'Indian securities market' said, "The new model will not be a blind or mindless copy of American or those of advanced countries as we have a different scenario in Indian stock market."

He said that such a model was required as stock market scams of the level of the Harshad Mehta scam have been occurring in every three-and-a-half-years.

He, however, put in a word of caution and added, "No model can protect the investors from losing money in market due to wrong investment but the new model would ensure that they do not get duped in investments in primary market".

He said that in India small or retail investors have 25-30 per cent of ownership in majority of scrips as compared to USA where investing institutions play a major part in the market.