The Delhi government will soon become the first city in the world to use only e-stamps for affidavits, signing agreement, bonds, general memorandums, and general purchase attorney (GPA). The e-stamping facility is an electronic system of paying non-judicial stamp duty, a secured way of stamping documents.
What are e-stamps?
“Till now whenever, people wanted to buy stamp paper, they go to a stamp paper vendor and buy a stamp from him. Now many times it so happens that the stamp paper of the denomination wanted is not available, this problem will be the thing of the past with the introduction of e-stamp paper. As any amount of stamp price can be entered into the computer. Now, after seeing the success of e stamping method in higher amounts, we have initiated the process of usage of e-stamps for all amounts,” says Divisional Commissioner Vijay Dev. All the information of the applicants paying the stamp duty will be stored in electronic form. A central data repository would be created to facilitate easy verifications of transactions made.
How can people avail this facility?
Individuals, deed writers, stamp paper vendors, advocates, corporate and banks are authorised collection centres (ACC) for paying stamp duty, said Dev. Currently, 250 ACC’s have already been appointed in the capital.
One can go to the ACC, where staff employed by him will fill in the details of the applicant in an e-application form on the website managed by Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited (SHCIL). The government of India has appointed the company as the sole central record keeping agency for e-stamping.
Each e-stamp certificate has a unique identification number. The stamp duty can be paid by way of cash, demand draft, pay order, real time gross settlement (RTGS).
The way ahead
The state government has taken a decision to stop procuring physical stamp papers from the government printing press situated in Nasik, Maharashtra. Over the next two months, the physical stamp papers in the city will get sold out and the city will shift completely to e stamping system.