The Securities & Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) ability to eradicate insider trading from stock markets would a key indicator of its future effectiveness, Prime Minister Manmoham Singh.

Speaking at the capital market regulator's silver jubilee function in Mumbai, Mr. Singh termed insider trading in stock markets as a "disease," stressed on the need to eradicate it.

Asking the market regulator to eradicate insider trading, Mr. Singh said, "A key indicator of Sebi's future effectiveness will be its ability to root out the hard-to-define, but extremely pernicious disease of insider trading."

He also assured that the government would do its best to strengthen the market regulator's enforcement powers.

Insider trading cases are rampant in the country, but Sebi has been crippled by lack of powers, particularly search and seizure powers.

A few months back, Sebi chief UK Sinha complained that the regulator could not ask for any records or impound any paper or freeze any bank accounts because it lacked those powers.

Sebi got statutory powers and became an independent regulator in the year 1992 when Mr. Singh was the finance minister in the Narasimha Rao government.