Rush among staff to open demat accounts

Workers at South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) in Chhattisgarh are scrambling for a piece of the Coal India IPO.

Broking houses in the state have seen a surge of interest in opening demat accounts, particularly among employees of SECL, a Coal India subsidiary, who will receive a 5 per cent discount on the issue price.

SECL has its administrative headquarters in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh.

“Earlier, we used to get hardly one or two applications for opening demat accounts. But in the last one month, we have opened more than 90 accounts in Korba district,” said Vidyabhusan Tiwari, area sales manager at Religare Securities.

SECL has a large coalfield in Korba, covering an area of around 530 sq km.

Tiwari said colliery workers, who have never invested in shares in their life, have approached him to open new demat accounts.

SECL has 80,000 employees and the company produces 108.01 million tonnes of coal from its 92 mines.

The company has the highest production among all Coal India subsidiaries.

“A couple of firms are offering Coal India employees free demat accounts, hoping to be compensated by the transaction brokerage,” said D K Agrawal, a stock broker in the state capital.