The structure of symplectic (canonical) transformations on manifolds with conical singularities is established. The operators associated with these transformations are defined in the weight spaces and their properties investigated.

The quantization of contact transformations of the cosphere bundle over a manifold with conical singularities is described. The index of Fredholm operators given by this quantization is calculated. The answer is given in terms of the Epstein-Melrose contact degree and the conormal symbol of the corresponding operator.

We construct elliptic elements in the algebra of (classical pseudo-differential) operators on a manifold M with conical singularities. The ellipticity of any such operator A refers to a pair of principal symbols (σ0, σ1) where σ0 is the standard (degenerate) homogeneous principal symbol, and σ1 is the so-called conormal symbol, depending on the complex Mellin covariable z. The conormal symbol, responsible for the conical singularity, is operator-valued and acts in Sobolev spaces on the base X of the cone. The σ1-ellipticity is a bijectivity condition for all z of real part (n + 1)/2 − γ, n = dimX, for some weight γ. In general, we have to rule out a discrete set of exceptional weights that depends on A. We show that for every operator A which is elliptic with respect to σ0, and for any real weight γ there is a smoothing Mellin operator F in the cone algebra such that A + F is elliptic including σ1. Moreover, we apply the results to ellipticity and index of (operator-valued) edge symbols from the calculus on manifolds with edges.