The Securities and Exchange Board of India, now also the regulator for commodity derivatives, has set up an advisory committee for the commodity market.

It will be chaired by Ramesh Chand, member, NITI Aayog. On it are Sameer Shah, managing director, National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange and P K Singhal, joint MD at Multi Commodity Exchange of India. Two senior officials of Sebi are on it, as are Vijay Sardana, a commodity expert, Gopal Krishna Nayak from the Indian Institute of Management at Bengaluru, and one G Chandrashekhar, said a source.

The role of the committee is to discuss issues relating to regulations and development of commodity markets and suggest required measures to the Sebi. Sebi has such advisory committees for almost all big segments and classes of stakeholders. The existing advisory committees are on te primary and secondary (equity capital) markets, investors protection, technical advisory, mutual funds, consent orders and compounding of offenses, corporate bonds, alternative investments and takeover regulations. Such committees include market and sector experts.

Ramesh Chand, chairman of the committee, has at least 30 years of experience in research and teaching in agricultural economics and policy.

Prior to joining NITI Aayog, he was Director of the National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, Delhi.