SEBI Chief gets two year extension

Sebi chairman Mr. UK Sinha has got a two-year extension till 2016 to continue at the top job at SEBI. A Finance Ministry notification has confirmed this. The extension will be valid from 18th February 2014 to till 2016.

Mr. Sinha is a 1976-batch IAS officer and had served as Joint Secretary in Finance Ministry. Prior to getting the post in SEBI, Mr. Sinha was the Chairman and MD of UTI Mutual Fund.

Under the stewardship of Sinha, key reform measure were initiated in the capital market and mutual fund space. Further reforms are expected in Mutual Fund space with Mr. Sinha promising policy push for mutual fund industry soon.

"There is a need to refocus on the purpose and need to refocus on the goal (of mutual funds)," he said in a speech recently at a function in Mumbai.

"The idea behind this long-term policy is to ensure that amongst the whole bouquet of financial products, the role and purpose of mutual funds should be established", he added.

Some of the things that he has in mind is to look at ways to encourage industry to come out with real estate funds which came into regulation five years back but none of the AMCs has launched any scheme so far.

CB Bhave, M Damodaran and G N Bajpai are the three predecessors who served three years term each. Only DR Mehta served the longest duration from 1995 to 2002.