Guwahati, June 16: Assam is introducing electronic or e-stamping on an experimental basis in two districts this month as a first step towards pre-empting fraudulent dealings with stamp papers, which made Abdul Karim Telgi a millionaire in the nineties.

To get the procedure moving, Dispur will sign an memorandum of understanding with the Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited (SHCIL), the agency mandated by the Centre to act as the apex record keeping agency for the pilot project, here tomorrow.

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi, principal secretary of the revenue department V.K. Pipersenia and senior officials of the SHCIL will be there at the meet. To be introduced at the sub-registrar’s offices of the Kamrup and Kamrup (metro) districts this month, the system will be extended to the other districts of the state after six months if the trail venture is successful.

A three-day training programme will be held for sub-registrars of the districts from Thursday so that they are acquainted with the electronic mode of registration.

This will be the second e-governance project to be introduced by the revenue department after issuance of computer-generated jamabandi (land records).

“It is a pilot project, the basic objective of which is to prevent fraudulent practices like those pulled off by Telgi. The e-stamping procedure is secure, cheaper, time-saving and reliable, compared to the existing system where you need to buy stamp papers for any kind of registration. Stamp paper is finally on its way out. Barring any last-minute changes, we will sign the MoU with SCHIL tomorrow evening,” a CMO source said.

In case of e-stamping, the entire procedure — from payment of stamp duty to getting a tamper-proof certificate — will not take not more than three minutes.

A person planning to register a flat or a property in his name will have to first go to the sub-registrar’s office, get the assessment done of the stamp duty to be paid for registration.

After the applicant pays the required amount, an official at a computer installed by the SCHIL will give a printout of the stamp paper of the required denomination to the applicant. All data about the applicant and the transaction will next be fed into the computer.

The genuineness of the certificate can be verified through the unique information number that comes with the certificate by logging onto the e-stamping website.