The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has submitted the list of the companies to the depository.

It is felt that once these companies sign up with NSDL, the companies accounting for 99 per cent of the delivery value at the bourse would have been brought into the depository fold, thus cleansing the system of fake and forged shares as well as bad deliveries.

The companies whose names figure on the list include Apollo Tyres, ITC Hotels, Whirlpool, Cummins, Kothari Products, Lakme, MRF, Nagarjuna Fertiliser & Chemicals, Philips India, Pidilite Industries, Ponds India, Raymonds, Reckitt & Colman, Leading Edge Systems, LML, Lupin Laboratories, Archies Greetings and Gifts, Asian Hotels, Bank of Rajasthan, BASF India, Bausch & Lomb, BFL Software, Bharat Forge, Ballarpur Industries, Knoll Pharma, CarrierAircon, CESC, Exide Industries, Crest Communication, Daewoo Motors, Fujitsu Icim, German Remedies, Godfrey Philips, HFCL, HCC, Hitech Drilling, Industrial Oxygen, IPCA Labs, Madras Cements, Majestic Auto and Saw Pipes.

While NSDL plans to urge these companies to sign up, it is felt that the more effective weapon could be to include these companies in the next list of securities where institutions would be asked to mandatorily trade only in demat shares.

Once a large section of their shareholders are pushed to the demat mode, it is felt that these companies may be forced to sign up with the depository.

"We have furnished a list of companies to the depository urging them to ensure that these are brought into the depository mode at the earliest," NSE deputy managing director Ravi Narain said. When contacted, NSDL managing director CB Bhave said that the depository is working on ensuring that these companies are brought into the depository fold. If the need arises, the issue may also be taken up with thesecurities regulator, SEBI.

Bhave said that in addition to the list forwarded by NSE, the depository is also closely looking at scrips forming part of the forward list of shares at the Bombay Stock Exchange, and those forming part of the erstwhile Crisil-500 Index.

"After the recent expansion of the list of scrips where institutions will be only able to trade in demat shares, we have already covered 117 out of the 150 scrips on the BSE forward list, 65 out of the scrips forming part of the BSE-100 Index and 106 scrips comprising of the CNX-200 Index," Bhave said.