E-stamp chaos grips Pindi

System failure stalls property deals, court work, and official documentation

RAWALPINDI:

The Punjab government's newly introduced e-stamp paper system has suffered a complete breakdown, plunging hundreds of thousands of citizens into hardship and leaving stamp vendors without work in Rawalpindi and across the province.

Applicants are forced to wait for hours in vain, unable to obtain e-stamp papers, while the provincial government's daily revenue — worth millions of rupees — has been severely disrupted.

The new system, introduced by the Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR), requires citizens to verify their mobile numbers via a One-Time Password (OTP) before an e-stamp can be issued. However, the process has proven deeply flawed, with most applicants never receiving the OTP, effectively bringing the entire operation to a halt.

Stamp vendors report spending entire days inputting clients' details into the official online portal, waiting endlessly for verification codes that fail to arrive. Without these OTPs, no stamp papers can be generated or issued.

The system has created particular difficulties for elderly citizens and women whose mobile SIMs are not registered in their own names -— a new prerequisite for verification. Consequently, those without mobile phones, or with numbers not registered in their name, are completely unable to access e-stamp services.

The disruption has paralysed administrative and legal transactions across Punjab — including at Rawalpindi District Courts, municipal offices, and property registries. The sale and purchase of land, vehicles, and other assets, along with affidavit attestations, school and college admissions, and even applications for new electricity and gas connections, have all been brought to a standstill.

At stamp vendors' offices, long queues of frustrated citizens can be seen waiting all day in the hope of receiving OTPs that never arrive. Vendors say their livelihoods have been devastated, lamenting that their "hearths have gone cold" as business grinds to a halt.

They have appealed to the Chief Minister of Punjab to immediately withdraw the malfunctioning OTP-based system and reinstate the previous procedure, calling the current arrangement "a source of needless public suffering."

Both citizens and vendors have demanded that the government hold accountable the officials responsible for introducing a system that has brought administrative operations across the province to a standstill.