It’s been nearly 50 years since Reliance Textile Industries’ IPO, and Jio is expected to hit the markets. Share values, investor expectations, and listing timelines have all changed. What has stayed the same is the idea that ordinary Indians can own a business.
In 1977, buying company shares was far less convenient than it is today. There was no investment app, no demat account, and no UPI notification telling you an IPO application had arrived. Investing meant documents, paper certificates, and a slower process.
And it was that year that Reliance Textile Industries got its shares listed for public investment, with a ₹10 stock, a milestone for India’s equity markets.
The company garnered about ₹2.8 crore and was oversubscribed about seven times. By the year-end, it had garnered close to 58,000 investors. For a company that needs money to expand, a public issue was a faster way to raise the necessary capital than the often-long process of raising it from banks and financial institutions. But perhaps more significantly, it involved a huge number of individual investors in a company’s progress.
Almost 49 years on, the market is gearing up for another Reliance breakthrough: the public sale of Jio Platforms. This time, it’s an order of magnitude bigger, and the mechanism is completely different. You can submit a bid online, make an upfront payment via UPI, and keep the allocated shares in electronic format. The central depository in India has several tens of crores of accounts, but not necessarily as many investors.
Between one milestone and another is not just a tale of technological evolution. It is also a story of how India’s capital markets have slowly, surely become accessible, transparent and efficient.
1977: Shares could be the start of a purchase of a share certificate
The initial public offering of Reliance came when the Indian stock market was a modest one. Most companies relied on banks and financial institutions for funding, and direct investment by retail investors was nowhere near the current scenario.
Reliance Textile Industries chose another path. Its issue at ₹ 10 a share received a better-than-expected response, proving that a retail investor was prepared to invest in a rising concern if its growth was credible.
But back then, it was a far cry from the process of online application today. Investors filled out application forms and paid via traditional banking methods and waited for allotment. Shares were printed on physical paper, and buying and selling required paperwork and admin.
The relevance of the 1977 issue was not in the funding that it generated. It was that in that issue there was hope that public participation could be leveraged into valuable Indian corporate capital. There was a prospect that the small investors could themselves participate in the growth of the Indian economy.
That idea has persisted in the Indian equity markets in the following decades.
1996: Ownership moves from paper to electronic
Electronic investing: a new era. Paper-based ownership brought its own problems. Certificates could go missing, get damaged or even be forged; accounts could be opened fraudulently, while transfers between providers could take weeks and be subject to delays and disputes.
Significant milestones occurred when India’s first depository, the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL), became operational in November 1996.
The depository system was the precursor to the electronic holding of securities. Investors would no longer need to possess physical certificates; they could prefer to keep their investments in dematerialized form.
This was far more than a bureaucratic upgrade. The electronic ownership of securities diminished the dangers of the paper certificate and laid the foundation for a more robust, faster-moving securities market.
It also brought into the picture that, with more market participants, it was more feasible for investors to invest. As the ecosystem of investors grew, investors were no longer unable to look at shareholding as a package of papers, which needed to be stored and transported with serious care.
The early stages of the modern IPO (initial public offering) process were emerging.
2006: Reliance Petroleum and size of retail demand
A decade since its inception, Reliance Petroleum’s public issue threw open the door once again to Indian investor appetites.
When opened from April 13 to April 20, 2006, it made a public issue of 45 crore shares at ₹60 per share, aggregating to ₹2,700 crore. It was oversubscribed by more than 51 times with 21,08,279 applications. The retail investors’ portion was oversubscribed 14.91 times.
These numbers are remarkable, even by the high quality of a market that has seen several large, heavily oversubscribed IPOs since then.
The issue also demonstrated the way investors behaved at the time. Retail applications paid ₹16 a share on application, while the balance could be paid in accordance with the terms of the issue. Reliance Industries was to subscribe to 90 crore shares, according to the historical account provided.
The process was still longer for investors, but once there was a sign of demand, it was clear that the public market had gone through quite a bit since those early ₹10 Reliance shares.
Apart from the distinction of being the only Reliance Petroleum IPO, it also happened to be the last Reliance group IPO before the much-awaited Jio Platforms offer.
2008: ASBA changes how investors pay
The biggest reform came in 2008, when the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) implemented the Application Supported by Blocked Amount, or ASBA, technology, on September 1.
Prior to ASBA, IPO applications by investors were simply a matter of submitting money and waiting till the allotment time was over. Investors, if they were not allotted shares, had to get back their money.
ASBA is different from this process. With ASBA, the application amount stays in the investor’s bank account and is not transferred immediately to the issuer. Instead, it gets debited if the shares are issued, and the rest is released.
This split level may seem insignificant, but it solved a real pain point for retail investors: they didn’t have to lose the cash in their account as soon as they applied to buy the shares.
It made the process more methodical too, so you wouldn’t have to organize refunds one by one when a claim went unfruitful.
Gradually, ASBA became an essential element of the contemporary IPO process. This served to disconnect the application for shares from the transfer of cash and aided in making the IPO process more comfortable for investors while also more streamlined.
2016: Significant expansion of investor base
As of November 2016, NSDL and Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL), the two depositories of India, had maintained about 2.69 crore investor accounts.
It helps give us a snapshot of how the market has travelled since 1977: what started as a public issue that managed to get 58,000-odd shareholders had grown into a market with crores of demat accounts.
The increase mirrored the growth of electronic ownership, the growth of online investing, and increased access to markets outside investing hubs.
The number of accounts should not be mistaken for the number of investors.
2019 onwards: UPI brings the IPO application to the smartphone
If demat accounts changed how Indians held shares, digital payments changed how they could apply for them.
UPI became a payment route for retail IPO applications in 2019, adding another layer of convenience to a process that had already moved away from physical certificates and conventional payment methods.
An investor could now place a bid through a broker or investment platform and authorize the corresponding payment mandate through UPI. The required amount would be blocked, subject to the mandate and applicable process, while the investor waited for the allotment outcome.
The appeal was straightforward: fewer manual steps, a familiar payment interface, and a more convenient way to participate in public issues.
The permitted UPI application limit was subsequently increased from ₹2 lakh to ₹5 lakh for issues opening on or after May 1, 2022, broadening its usefulness for eligible retail applications.
These developments made the IPO process more accessible to people already comfortable with digital banking and mobile payments. Applying for shares became less dependent on physical paperwork and more integrated with the digital financial services Indians were using in everyday life.
Convenience, however, does not remove investment risk. A simple application process cannot guarantee allotment, listing gains, or long-term returns. The ease of placing a bid and the quality of an investment decision remain two separate things.
2023: From six working days to three
The next important change concerned what happened after an IPO closed.
In 2023, SEBI moved to shorten the time between the close of a public issue and the listing of its shares. The new T+3 timeline became mandatory for public issues opening on or after December 1, 2023, replacing the earlier timeline of up to six working days after issuing closure.
In practical terms, T+3 means listing within three working days after the issue closes, subject to the applicable process and trading calendar.
For investors, a shorter timeline means less waiting to discover the allotment outcome and see the shares begin trading. For the market, it means a quicker transition from the subscription stage to listing.
This is a far cry from the early days of physical share certificates, when the process involved multiple manual steps and the movement of documents between different parties.
The distinction is worth remembering when discussing Reliance’s next major market milestone. Jio Financial Services, which listed on August 21, 2023, did so following a one-for-one demerger from Reliance Industries. It was not an IPO. Jio Platforms anticipated public offering is a separate event.
2026: The Jio moment and a very different IPO market
India’s IPO ecosystem in 2026 operates on a scale that would have been difficult to imagine in 1977.
As of June 30, 2026, CDSL held approximately 18.59 crore demat accounts. NSDL had approximately 4.51 crore accounts in May 2026. These figures refer to accounts rather than unique investors, but they illustrate the enormous expansion of the country’s electronic securities infrastructure.
Against this backdrop, Jio Platforms’ anticipated IPO represents a significant moment for both the Reliance group and the wider market.
The contrast with 1977 is unmistakable. The original Reliance public issue raised about ₹2.8 crore at ₹10 a share. The new offering arrives in a market shaped by digital payments, electronic ownership, faster listing timelines, and a much larger base of potential applicants.
For an investor applying today, much of the process can take place on a smartphone. The bid is submitted digitally, the payment is authorized through UPI where applicable, and the application amount is blocked rather than immediately transferred. If shares are allotted, they are credited electronically to the investor’s demat account. Listing follows under the applicable timetable.
The experience is faster and more convenient, but its purpose has not changed: companies raise capital from the public, and investors get an opportunity to own a stake in their business.
The scale of participation, the technology involved, and the regulatory safeguards surrounding the process have all evolved. The basic relationship between a company seeking funds and an investor willing to back it remains the same.
Nearly five decades later, the idea remains unchanged
Looking back from 2026, it is tempting to measure the transformation of India’s IPO market through account numbers, payment systems and listing timelines alone. Those measures matter, but they tell only part of the story.
The more important shift is in the experience of investing. In 1977, participating in a public issue meant navigating a paper-based system that was less convenient and more time-consuming. Today, the same broad act of participation can begin with a few taps on the phone.
NSDL’s arrival helped move ownership from paper to electronic records. ASBA changed how application money was handled. UPI made payments more convenient, and the move to T+3 shortened the wait between subscription and listing.
Each reform addressed a specific friction point. Together, they helped build an IPO process suited to a much larger market.
There is still a difference between making investing accessible and making every investment successful.
Oversubscription does not guarantee listing gains, and a well-known corporate name does not eliminate the need to assess valuations, business prospects, and risk. Easier access makes informed decisions more important, not less.
Yet, the journey from Reliance Textile Industries’ ₹10 shares to Jio Platforms’ digital-era offering captures something important about India’s financial evolution. The market has moved from physical forms to digital mandates, from paper certificates to demat holdings and from long waits to a three-working-day listing framework.
Technology may have changed beyond recognition. The opportunity that first drew thousands of investors to Reliance in 1977, however, remains at the heart of the IPO market today: the chance to participate in a company’s growth, one share at a time.