The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) may soon issue rules for setting up stock exchanges dedicated to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). “Sebi is working on the concept paper on SME exchanges. It may soon release the guidelines,” Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Dinsha Patel said at a seminar organised by MCX-SX and the Society for Capital Market Research and Development here today. He said SMEs were not able to raise capital through the market since they could not meet the listing and trading requirements of BSE and NSE. Hence, a separate exchange for them was required, he added. He said India could use experiences of SMEs listed on stock exchange in countries like the US, the UK, Japan and China. MSME Secretary Dinesh Rai said there should be more than one exchange for SMEs. “Sebi is working on the guidelines keeping in mind the nature of SMEs. I feel strongly that we need to have more than one SME exchange,” he said. There are over 13 million MSMEs in the country employing about 42 million people. BSE, NSE and the new entrant, MCX Stock Exchange (MCX-SX), had shown an interest in setting up an SME exchange, said an industry source. MCX-SX Vice-Chairman Jignesh Shah said India did not have mature venture capitalists to fund small and medium firms and the stock exchange was the only place where they could raise capital. “We are waiting for Sebi guidelines to offer services to SMEs on our platform,” he said. Speaking on the sidelines of the seminar, the minister said the ministry had approached defence and railways ministries asking them to procure 20 per cent of their requirements from MSMEs.