The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has issued a Consultation Paper on Measures to Strengthen Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) of Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs), seeking stakeholder feedback on proposed enhancements to the existing BCP/DR framework. The proposals aim to shorten the duration of mock DR drills, strengthen operational resilience at the Primary Data Centre (PDC), and improve data recovery arrangements for Stock Exchanges.
The proposed DR framework would require MIIs to conduct drills on non-working days by commencing operations at the PDC and switching over to the Disaster Recovery Site (DRS), with the overall drill lasting at least four hours including switchover time. MIIs would need to simulate actual market loads and cover various operational disruption scenarios, with the comprehensive scenario list reviewed by the Standing Committee on Technology (SCOT). At the PDC, MIIs would also conduct stress/mock testing covering transaction and non-transaction components, test fault tolerance, identify system limits and boundary conditions, maintain adequate error logging and ready-reckoners, and periodically verify configurations across the PDC, Near Site (NS) and DRS.
For Stock Exchanges, SEBI proposes a framework to recover lost trade data from Clearing Corporations (CCs) where disruption may also affect replication at the NS or DRS, with necessary SOPs to be established between Stock Exchanges and CCs. Public comments are invited up to October 5, 2026, through SEBI's online public-comment platform; technical issues may alternatively be communicated by email to the officers specified in the consultation paper. As this is a consultation paper, the proposals are not yet operative requirements.
