Figures available with the NSE indicate that in the last settlement concluded on December 16, as many as 22 scrips witnessed demat delivery to the extent of over 80 per cent. In a total of 47 scrips, the percentage of demat shares delivered is in excess of 50 per cent.

The scrips where over 90 per cent of the delivery in consistently coming in the form of dematerialised shares are: HPCL, VSNL, Corporation Bank, GE Shipping, Indo Gulf Fertilisers, BPCL, ABB, Cochin Refineries and L&T.

The scrips which saw more than 85 per cent of the settlement taking place in demat form are: Thermax, ACC, MTNL, Indian Hotels and M&M. Those in the 80 per cent plus demat delivery bracket are: BSES, HDFC, ICICI, IDBI, IndusIndBank, Infosys, State Bank of India and Wipro.

"The real pressure is already through. Most of the delivery based volumes are in any case attributed to the institutions. These are already well entrenched in the depository mode of settlement. In terms of amount of shares as well as number of shares, the bulk of the settlement by far is catered to by institutions," says NSDL Chief, C B Bhave.

"Yes, we will see a number of accounts being opened as a larger cross section of investors join the depository. What is interesting about the January 4 deadline is that we would see investors being able to buy demat shares as liquidity would be injected," says Bhave. "There has been virtually no liquidity on the pure demat segment due to varying settlement cycles. Now that issue would be addressed and investors will finally be able to buy demat shares directly from the market. The lack of liquidity has been a major concern with investors especially NRIs," he adds.

"Most of the active traders apart from institutionshave already moved to the depository. Almost all the brokers have sensitised their clients about dematerialisation," he said.