Amritsar takes to stock trading

City scores over Chandigarh in new investors and demat accounts

The holy city of Amritsar comes second only to Ludhiana, in Punjab, for having witnessed a significant increase in the number of new equity investors in the past one and half a year. It has even surpassed the union territory of Chandigarh.

Sources in the industry believe that lack of job opportunities and huge ancestral properties, along with the recent property boom, has led to a substantial increase in the number of investors in Amritsar.

According to data available with the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL), there has been around 28 per cent increase in the number of demat accounts in Chandigarh, while it was 26.5 per cent in Ludhiana. Amritsar had a 36.5 per cent increase in the number of demat accounts.

Till August last year there were 25,087 demat account holders in Amritsar, while in case of Ludhiana it was 29,248. Chandigarh had13,179 demat account holders.

A Fortis Securities executive said, "The increase is because of higher awareness among people. This is evident from the fact that there are many national brokers along with regional brokers, operating from here."

Even Regional Brokers, like Vikson Finance & Investment Private Limited have recently started their terminals in small towns like Rajpura, Barnala, Nangal, Ropar and Nabha due to a growing demand from investors. There is a strong desire in the people residing in these areas to be part of stock market boom.

More and more investors seem to be getting on to the equity banwagon, if once glance at the number of deemat account.

Experts also believe, that there are so many reasons like, fall in interest rates, failure of non-banking financial corporations in the small towns and expansion of trading terminals in far-flung areas by the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange coupled with the desire to make quick money, have triggered this trend.