The pay-in at exchanges was seriously hit last fortnight after instructions from leading DP, Stock Holding Corporation of India (SHCIL) failed to reach NSDL and the clearing house in time.

A circular outlining preventive measures was sent out to all DPs on Friday. The circular makes it clear that all DPs have been provided with facilities to monitor the successful execution of instructions and that DPs must train their staff to monitor such execution.

To start with NSDL has decided to slap a late fee of 0.25 per cent of the value of securities delivered from the clearing member accountto the clearing corporation, subject to a maximum of Rs 50,000 per DP per settlement. This shall be charged to the participant.

The deadline for delivery of securities will be 3.00 pm on the pay-in day and up to 6.00 pm for late fee. The late fee will be charged with effect from the weekly settlements of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) falling due on or after April 12.

"The question of extending the similar procedure for weekly settlements of other exchanges as well as for rolling settlements is under consideration and participants will be duly informed when the procedure is extended to other settlements," the NSDL circular states.

NSDL has asked DPs to ensure that instructions relating to settlements should be segregated for each stock exchange, market type and settlement number. This should include delivery-out instructions, client to clearing member pool transfer instructions and inter-settlement instructions with the target settlement pertaining to which pay-inis due.

Participants would have to ensure that the transactions that have the effect of crediting the clearing member pool accounts for a settlement, such as client to clearing member pool transfer instructions and inter-settlement instructions are in the status "closed, settled" at least one hour before the NSDL deadline time. In case the instructions are in any other status, participants should report to NSDL help-desk immediately.

Participants would have to ensure that the delivery-out instructions are in the status "accepted by NSDL" at NSDL deadline time.Participants have been asked to continuously monitor all the three services communications, transmit and receive, are running. In case, it is found that any of the services have stopped, the participant should verify whether any errors are displayed on the server and should immediately report to the NSDL help desk.

Non-settlement related instructions like account opening, dematerialisation, rematerialisation, etc, should not be captured/verifiedand released or exports should not be taken during settlement timings.There are a set of guidelines for import-export of transactions in the depository participant module as well. Import-exports should be done preferably after completion of end-of-the-day process. In case of emergencies, imports may be done during business hours. Receive and transmit services should be manually stopped before import-export. It should be started again manually after completion of the import-export.