Allotment is the official process where the registrar to the issue determines which applicants receive shares from the IPO. The basis of allotment is finalised three to five working days after the issue closes. SEBI requires the basis of allotment to be approved by the designated stock exchange before any communication goes to applicants.
For oversubscribed mainboard IPOs, retail allotment becomes a computerised lottery — the registrar generates a random allocation among all eligible bids at or above the cut-off price. For SME IPOs, allotment in the retail category follows the same lottery basis when oversubscribed. The QIB and Non-Institutional Investor (NII) categories follow proportional allotment.
Applicants receive allotment intimation through SMS and email from the registrar. The status can also be checked online using PAN, application number, or DP ID on the registrar's website. Allotment status checkers on aggregator sites like BasicFintech pull the same data directly from the registrar's portal.