New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS): The urban development ministry on Friday launched e-publishing of the government's gazette notifications, putting an end to the long wait for the printed version.

The ministry, which holds administrative control of the government's printing presses, also said it had stopped physical printing of gazette notifications.

The gazette notification is an important legal requirement to validate, authenticate and to make effective various kinds of laws, acts, rules, orders and government decisions.

"The shift to e-publishing came at the behest of Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu from the first of this month," the ministry said in a statement.

User groups and citizens can now download and print all gazette notifications free of charge.

"Under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000, downloaded and printed gazette copies are sufficient for all official and legal purposes," the statement said.

The e-publishing does away with the need for printing pages for such notifications while saving publication cost of Rs.40 crore per year, it added.