Punjab to bring e-stamping to phase out stamp papers

Chandigarh, July 8 (IANS) Aiming to eliminate the need to purchase and submit stamp papers with legal documents, the Punjab cabinet Tuesday gave nod to the draft of the state e-stamp rules, 2014 for the implementation of e-stamping system.

A spokesperson of the chief minister's office said that e-stamping would eliminate purchase of stamp papers and would ensure transparency, faster collection of registration fee and would guard against embezzlement.

The state cabinet has also approved the right of way to BSNL for connecting state government offices at district, sub-division, block and tehsil level through a state wide area network.

The Punjab government has been, in the past one year, trying to provide citizen-centric services under its Right to Service mechanism.

At least 47 key citizen-centric services including birth and death certificates, pension services, ration card services, marriage, caste and residence certificates, Right to Information and grievances have been selected under the project.

"Similarly 32 services would be offered online to citizens under state service delivery gateway. The E-district project has already been successfully implemented in Kapurthala and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar districts as pilot project and now this project would be implemented in remaining 20 districts across the state within six months," the spokesman added.