With around 28 infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs) and six real estate investment trusts (REITs) currently registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the country’s alternative investment landscape has achieved notable scale. The regulatory framework governing these financing vehicles has matured over time. As India progresses towards the goal of Viksit Bharat 2047, the securities market will serve as a vital engine of national progress. In the company’s Annual Report 2025-26, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Chairman, SEBI, highlighted the growing role of the market regulator, current infrastructure financing trends, key policy and regulatory moves, initiatives in the digitalisation space, and SEBI’s future plans. Edited excerpts…
Financial year 2025-26 was a period of resilience for the Indian securities market. It was one of the most eventful and challenging years in recent times, marked by geopolitical conflicts, trade wars, transformative technologies, and volatility in asset prices and portfolio flows. As we progress towards the goal of Viksit Bharat 2047, the Indian securities market serves as a vital engine of national progress, anchored by four enduring principles: trust, transparency, teamwork, and technology.
Financing the national vision
The primary equity market demonstrated continued dynamism, with India ranking first globally in the number of initial public offerings (IPOs) and third in terms of funds raised. To sustain this momentum, we restructured the minimum public offer framework, calibrating public float requirements to issue size. By extending the timeline for the largest issuers to achieve a 25 per cent minimum public shareholding to 10 years, we have ensured that large-scale enterprises can access public capital, without facing the challenges of regular dilution post listing. Similarly, by allowing founders of new-age companies to retain employee stock option plans (ESOPs) granted prior to an IPO, we have maintained the alignment of long-term incentives while preserving transparency for public shareholders.
In the alternative investment space, alternative investment funds (AIFs) have become a structurally important component of India’s capital market. A new category of accredited investor-only schemes was introduced to provide additional relaxations and operational flexibilities. The minimum investment threshold for large-value funds was reduced from Rs 700 million to Rs 25 million. Category I and II AIFs were permitted to offer co-investment schemes to facilitate AIFs and investors to co-invest.
Real estate investment trusts (REITs) and infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs) have matured from nascent instruments into significant infrastructure financing channels. Furthermore, the reclassification of REITs as equity-related instruments for investments made by mutual funds and specialised investment funds is a landmark shift that should increase liquidity and broaden the investor base for these instruments. India’s corporate bond market has made measurable progress in recent years. On the issuance side, SEBI launched the inaugural Pan-India Bond Issuer Outreach Programme. To broaden the retail investor base in debt, issuers were permitted to offer incentives, such as additional interest or price discounts, to retail investors and senior citizens. The Electronic Book Provider mechanism is now mandatory for debt issuances of Rs 200 million or above – bringing larger fundraisings onto a common, transparent, and standardised marketplace.
Simultaneously, urban local bodies (ULBs) were encouraged to access market-based funding for civic infrastructure. The municipal bond market witnessed 14 issuances raising Rs 17.56 billion, supported by targeted municipal bond outreach programmes in cities such as Bhopal and Raipur. This move has enabled ULBs to access domestic private capital for infrastructure financing.
The launch of electricity derivatives marks a key milestone in energy risk management. These contracts act as hedging instruments against price volatility and provide transparent forward price discovery for power generators and distribution companies.
Safeguarding trust in the digital era
Historically, market infrastructure was understood in terms of exchanges, clearing corporations, and depositories. These remain essential; however, alongside them, a second layer of infrastructure has become equally critical – data. The quality of market data, the integrity of data systems, and the governance frameworks that regulate data use now matter as much to market functioning and investor protection as physical infrastructure. SEBI has responded to this shift by investing in technology and data analytics as core supervisory tools.
The foundation of this protective architecture begins with the immediate and actionable verification of financial counterparties through validated UPI handles and the SEBI Check facility that empower investors to confirm in real time whether a payment is being directed to a genuine SEBI-registered intermediary. This digital vigilance is further necessitated by our latest Investor Survey, which revealed that 62 per cent of investors are influenced by finfluencers – many of whom operate without accountability or verified performance data.
Building upon these layers of individual safety, SEBI has made a generational leap in supervisory technology (SupTech) through the launch of Project Sudarsan – a tool developed to monitor unsolicited financial advice on social media and SEBI R(AI)DAR, an AI-enabled platform for reviewing advertisements. These tools allow us to actively identify unauthorised digital activity and finfluencers who may mislead investors through unverified claims.
To address the resulting information asymmetry in performance reporting, the launch of the Past Risk and Return Verification Agency (PaRRVA) marks a transformative step towards institutionalising performance claim.
However, SEBI recognises that even the strongest systems cannot replace awareness, which remains at the very core of investor protection. Around 63,000 awareness programmes were organised across 36 states and UTs in 2025-26. In collaboration with market infrastructure institutions (MIIs), a joint media campaign, titled SEBI vs SCAM, was launched during the year. We also collaborated with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj to train panchayat and block-level representatives, empowering them with knowledge to educate rural communities at the grassroots level. All these initiatives underline SEBI’s mission to deepen awareness and nurture a culture of informed decision-making.
Regulatory evolution: Optimum regulation and seamless access
SEBI’s regulatory philosophy this year has been guided by the concept of optimum regulation – a calibrated approach that holds firm where investor protection requires it, and actively removes friction where simplification can be achieved without weakening safeguards.
To this end, the SWAGAT-FI framework has introduced a single-window automatic access mechanism for trusted foreign investors, such as sovereign wealth funds, while the India Market Access portal provides a consolidated digital gateway for regulatory and taxation information. By streamlining these entry points, we have addressed the long-standing challenge of navigating diverse compliance layers for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). Domestically, the issuance of the common contract note marks a significant step in reducing the compliance burden on brokers, while the introduction of the closing auction session ensures enhanced price discovery in closing prices, minimising volatility and greater execution certainty during market close. Net settlement of funds for transactions of FPIs in the cash market has been permitted, which will be operationalised soon.
Perhaps the most significant structural reform was the comprehensive modernisation of legacy rulebooks. We comprehensively reviewed decades old regulations – the stock brokers regulations, Registrar and Transfer Agents (RTA) regulations, and mutual fund regulations. And made these regulations more relevant, simple, and streamlined. The new mutual fund regulations have simplified the expense ratio framework, rationalised brokerage limits and compliance requirements – ensuring that the interests of the unit-holder always remain paramount. The penalty structure applicable to brokers by stock exchanges was rationalised, with a focus on avoiding duplication.
Preserving market integrity
Market integrity continues to be treated as non-negotiable. SEBI, therefore, has continued to act against market abuse, including manipulation in the securities and derivatives markets, pump-and-dump schemes, insider trading, front-running, and corporate frauds.
SEBI undertook calibrated measures to make the derivatives market more orderly, resilient and risk-aware, particularly by reducing expiry-day concentration, rationalising weekly index options, and strengthening intraday position-limit monitoring. These initiatives seek to preserve the useful role of derivatives in hedging, liquidity and price discovery, while ensuring that market activity remains within prudent guardrails and does not compromise market stability or integrity. The governance framework of MIIs was strengthened to ensure public interest always comes first.
Vision for 2026-27 and beyond
In the coming year, SEBI will continue to focus on identifying and removing regulatory redundancies, simplifying procedural requirements, and leveraging technology to ease the compliance burden. We will continue our focus on deepening the cash equities market to spur capital formation. The Securities Lending and Borrowing Scheme needs revamping to improve price discovery and facilitate interlinkage between the cash and derivatives segments. We will continue our agenda to strengthen India’s commodity markets – both agriculture and non-agriculture.
To further accelerate capital mobilisation, we will introduce a fast-track mechanism for launching AIF schemes and developing a single-window clearance system for intermediaries associated with multiple MIIs, significantly reducing the compliance burden. Our focus extends to the modernisation of the market intermediary interface through the launch of the SEBI Setu Portal and a pilot project on the tokenisation of corporate bonds using distributed ledger technology. In tandem, we are advancing our cybersecurity frontiers by preparing the market for quantum-era risks and developing long-term technology roadmaps for our MIIs.
At the heart of this evolution remains the empowerment of the individual investor. A landmark initiative in this direction is Project Jagrook, inaugurated by the union finance minister. Project Jagrook is our effort to make investor awareness a unified national mission. It will bring together SEBI, MIIs, the Association of Mutual Funds in India, and the National Institute of Securities Markets, through a 360-degree campaign combining physical and digital outreach. The aim is not just about wider participation, but about responsible participation. It will empower investors to ask the right questions, make informed choices and enter the market with confidence, not confusion. These future-ready steps, will ensure that SEBI’s regulatory oversight remains as dynamic as the markets we serve, firmly anchoring our progress toward the goals of Viksit Bharat 2047.