New Delhi: Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd (SHCIL), India's largest custodian and depository participant, launched its state-of-the-art electronic stamping (e-stamping) facility here Wednesday.

The facility, inaugurated by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, will be available to the public at authorized collection centres - SHCIL branches and Corporation Bank branches - in the capital.

Said R.C Razdan, chairman and managing director of Stock Holding Corporation of India: "The e-stamping system has been designed to prevent paper and process-related fraudulent practices."

"It offers a reliable stamp duty collection mechanism; and stores information in secured electronic form and builds up a central data repository to facilitate easy verification. Both the public as well as the New Delhi government will benefit from the e-stamping facility."

The entire exercise of stamp duty payment and generation of a stamp duty certificate takes not more than three minutes with the new system.

The Corporation Bank plans to launch e-stamping facility in Maharashtra shortly. It is also in talks with the governments of Bihar and Tamil Nadu for establishing this facility.

SHCIL, which has been appointed by the government as a central record keeping agency, implemented the e-stamping facility in five cities of Gujarat - Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Surat, Rajkot and Baroda - and in Bangalore in March.