Demat Accounts in Punjab

While top 5 states in India account for 40% of Indian Demat accounts, other states are seeing greater increase in demat account no.s.

As per NSDL data, in Punjab, Ludhiana has the largest number of demat account holders (44,184), followed by Amritsar (40,970) and Jalandhar (31,112) till August 31, 2010. Overall, Punjab had 194,554 demat account holders in the state, as compared to 168,744 it had as on August 31, 2008.

Last year, there were 38,086 demat account holders in Ludhiana, while Amritsar had 36,021 account holders and Jalandhar 29,141. Clearly Ludhiana is a front runner. However, small cities like Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Sangrur and Rupnagar, among others, are also attracting potential equity investors.

As on August 31, 2010, Hoshirapur had 11,720 demat account holders, Gurdaspur (11,513), Sangrur(7,876) and Rupnagar (4,323).

“The increase is because of higher awareness among people and the boom in the stock market. This is evident from the fact that there are many national brokers along with regional brokers, operating from herem,” said an official of a broking firm.

Regional brokers, like Vikson Finance & Investment Private Limited, opened their terminals in small towns like Rajpura, Barnala, Nangal, Ropar and Nabha.