Class 3 digital signature, typically ready within 24 hours

A legal signing identity, working on your machine — usually within a day

When a tender portal or the MCA site demands a DSC, what you need is not a cryptography lesson — it is a valid Class 3 certificate installed and signing before your deadline. That finished state is what we sell: application, eKYC, verification video, token download and portal setup completed at one desk, typically within about 24 hours, by a centre that has handled compliance documentation in Vadodara since 2017.

The certificate itself is serious legal machinery. It is issued under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and only by Certifying Authorities licensed and supervised by the Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA) — the current list is published at cca.gov.in, and anyone selling certificates outside that system is selling nothing. A DSC-signed filing on the MCA or income tax portal is authenticated as yours and cannot later be denied. The strict checks that make it trustworthy — Aadhaar or PAN eKYC, OTPs on your own mobile and email, a short live video — are precisely the steps first-time applicants stumble on, and precisely the steps we sit through with you.

Harsiddhi Services is a facilitation centre, not a Certifying Authority: every certificate comes from the licensed system, and every quote — certificate, token and our assistance together — reaches you in writing before any work starts. One message on WhatsApp is enough to get it, and when renewal or a driver problem surfaces later, you come back to the same counter.

Individual or organization — the first question we will ask you

Class 3 certificates come in two holder types, and choosing wrongly is the single most common DSC purchasing mistake:

• Individual DSC — issued in your own name. This is what directors use for MCA filings, what proprietors and authorised signatories use on the GST portal, what taxpayers under audit use to sign income tax returns, and what CA/CS/CMA professionals use to certify forms. Fully paperless via Aadhaar eKYC.
• Organization DSC — issued to a person as an authorised signatory of an organization, with the organization's name embedded in the certificate. This is what e-procurement portals expect for tenders, what DGFT requires for non-proprietor entities, and what customs brokers and exporters use on ICEGATE. It needs organizational documents and takes a little longer.

There is a second axis: signature-only versus signature-plus-encryption ("combo") certificates. Routine filing portals need only a signing certificate; tender portals generally need the combo, because bids are encrypted as well as signed. We cover this in detail on the Class 3 page and the tender DSC page — in practice, you tell us where you need to sign, and we confirm the exact certificate in one WhatsApp message.

One, two or three years — how to choose

Licensed CAs issue Class 3 certificates with 1-year, 2-year or 3-year validity; three years is the longest commonly offered. The trade-off is simple:

• 1 year — lowest upfront cost. Sensible for a one-off need such as a single tender, or if the entity itself may close or restructure within the year.
• 2 years — the most popular choice for MCA, GST and income tax users. A reasonable balance of cost and renewal frequency.
• 3 years — cheapest per year and only one renewal cycle every three years. Our usual recommendation for anyone with ongoing filings, because every renewal means fresh eKYC, a fresh video and re-registering the DSC on each portal you use.

Remember that renewal is not an extension — it is a fresh certificate with the full verification repeated (see DSC renewal). The fewer times you go through that cycle, the fewer chances for an expired certificate to stall a filing deadline. Whichever validity you pick, we log the expiry date and remind you before it arrives.

The USB token, in one paragraph

Your certificate does not live on your computer — CCA security requirements mandate that the Class 3 private key be generated and kept inside a FIPS-validated hardware token (common models: ePass2003, ProxKey), protected by a PIN, from which it can never be copied out. That is why every DSC purchase involves a small USB device, and why "just email me the certificate file" is not a thing anyone legitimate can do. One token can hold more than one certificate, and your old token can usually be reused at renewal. The full story — how the download works, token care, PIN lockouts, driver installation — is on our USB token page.