Indian Market Infrastructure among World's Best: Sebi Chairman

"We have created market infrastructures which are world class and where trading today takes place in a much more transparent manner, which is much better than the way market functions in many other parts of the world including some really developed markets," Sinha said.

The Sebi chief further said that the markets were earlier concentrated in a few hands and to a few entities in terms of intermediaries as well as the investors.

"There has been a quantum jump on this front. A host of new investment avenues and market entities, starting from mutual funds to venture capital funds have come to the fore, widening the markets in a big way.

"There have been huge changes in the way primary markets function and are regulated. Amid all this growth and widening of the markets, safeguarding the investors' interest has remained paramount and significant changes have been made on that front as well," he said.

Sebi will celebrate its 25-years of existence at a function in Mumbai on Friday and those scheduled to be present on the occasion include Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, finance minister P Chidambaram, the entire top brass of the regulatory authority and many other eminent people from India and abroad.

Sebi was set up in 1988 with a mandate to develop the capital markets and infuse investor confidence by keeping a check on possible manipulations.

However, it did not have any statutory powers at that time and its role was limited to collection of investor-related information from various market participants, advising the government on issues related to stock markets and regulation of a few market entities.

The government gave Sebi statutory powers in 1992 through the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) Act. These powers included mandate to check insider trading and regulate takeovers and other substantial share acquisitions.

The Act also gave Sebi a mandate to protect the interests of investors, promote the development of markets and regulate them as well. This also happened to be the time when the Indian market was rocked by its biggest ever scandal of that time in form of Harshad Mehta scam.

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