The National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday announced that it will conduct a special live trading session on March 2, a Saturday, to test preparedness for handling unexpected disasters.”Members are requested to note that Exchange shall be conducting a special live trading session with intra-day switch over from Primary site to Disaster Recovery site on Saturday, March 02, 2024, in Equity and Equity Derivatives segments,” NSE said in a circular.This is being done as part of the framework for Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) for stock exchanges and depositories. The special trading session would involve intra-day switchover from the primary site to the disaster recovery site.The special session would be divided into two parts – the first session would begin at 9:15 am and run till 10 am. Trading in this session would be done from the primary site. In the second session from the disaster recovery site, trading would be held for one hour from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.All securities (including those on which derivative products are available) will have a maximum price band of 5%. Securities already in 2% or lower price band, shall continue to be available in the respective bands.All futures contracts shall have daily operating range of 5%.Stock markets are closed every Saturday and Sunday, besides other national holidays. But on rare occassions, bourses may choose to keep the market open in the weekend as was seen during 2020 Budget when the BSE and NSE were open for trading as February 1 fell on a Saturday.The special live trading session is being done according to Sebi guidelines which mandates testing of preparedness for handling unexpected disasters from the main trading centre in Mumbai.Earlier in the year, stock exchanges BSE and NSE had announced a special live trading session on January 20, which was also a Saturday, but since January 22 (Monday) was declared a holiday due to Ram Mandir inauguration, the Saturday session was converted into a full-fledged one.Similar sessions from the disaster recovery site have been conducted before in 2016 and 2017.(You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel)