Sebi has made it mandatory demat trading in the twelve scrips for all investors from January 4. In the case of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the move has already come into effect from November 30 and the first settlement in the new year would take place in the demat form only with regard to these 12 securities.

Investors who have so far stayed away from opening accounts with the depository are now rushing to the depository for fear of not being able to sell their shares in the event of them not being dematerialised.

Moreover, with awareness about the benefits of the depository spreading across the country and more and more depositoryparticipants offering depository services from various locations, investors are getting proactive and are coming to the depository seeing it as a benefit and not merely as a necessary evil.

``We have topped the 1.5 lakh account mark yesterday. We took 21 months to cross the 50,000 account mark. The next 50,000 came in three months and the third 50,000 has taken just about a one and half months. The depository juggernaut is rolling,'' said NSDL managing director C B Bhave.

Bhave said that the response from retail investors is picking up fast and admitted that there is a huge rush these days.

He admitted that the depository participants are finding it difficult to undertake the account opening procedures owing to the rush although they are having no problem with dematerialising the shares as they have got used to dematerialising huge chunks of institutional and high networth investors' holdings.

``With registrars and companies, too, no longer being burdened with paper the dematerialisation process isproceeding smoothly. However, with investors rushing in the way they are the depository participants are on their toes,'' said Bhave.

``The depository is gaining acceptance from the small investors and that is a healthy sign. The fact that investors from more than 1,500 locations have opened accounts with us shows that the small investor is aware of what the depository brings to him. Our focus now is on better service standards from depository participants,'' said Bhave.