``There is still a long way to go before we cover a large spectrum of Reliance shareholders but importantly the target is not 22 lakh but just about 5 lakh and this makes it much more simpler to cover all Reliance shareholders,'' said a depository source.

Incidentally, more than 41 per cent of Reliance's equity has been dematerialised and considering that promoters own 40 per cent (which is unlikely to be dematerialised), a large part of the equity has been converted into electronic form.

However, the balance of the equity which is yet to be dematerialised comprises a large number of shareholders spread across the country. Most of them hold small values of shares and mostly odd-lot shares.

In many ways, the success of the depository in terms of its reach has been benchmarked to the extent of dematerialisation that takes place by shareholders of Reliance.

This is because not only does the company have a large shareholder base but this is also widely spread across the country. In fact, it is for this reason that Sebi has kept the company in the third list of securities moving into the mandatory demat mode to ensure an adequate growth in infrastructure of the depository.

``The percentage of equity dematerialised is no doubt healthy but the challenge is in getting the small shareholders which in terms of number of shareholders are huge. With the expansion of the depository and lower rate coupled with the mandatory demat trading diktat, one can expect a fairly large number of shareholders moving to the depository fold in the near future,'' the source added.

Close to 3 lakh depository accounts have been opened with the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) as of date and the figure is growing by 10,000-15,000 accounts every week.

With NSDL bringing down its custody charges to 0.01 per cent per annum, several depository participants have actually stopped charging any custody charge whatsoever. These include Geojit Securities and Action Financial Services Ltd. Two other brokerages, Alankit Assignments and Dayco Securities, have waived custody charges for their clients who are using the broking services as well. Global Trust Bank has waived-off custody charges for custody upto Rs 5 lakh.