HYDERABAD: Call it fear of the stringent fines under the revised MV Act, or even the result of the massive publicity drive taken up by various Traffic Police wings in the State, the Telangana Roads and Transport Authority’s (RTA) m-Wallet app saw close to 1.22 lakh registrations in the last 30 days.
In fact, it may not be a stretch to assume that the numbers have picked up ever since the buzz about the Act has been around.
According to officials, between August 15 and September 15 alone, around 1,22,325 registrations were recorded for the m-Wallet app. This is a significantly high surge, as up until then roughly just 60,000 to 65,000 people registered every month. In fact, since March 2016 (when the app was launched) to August 15, 2019, only 27.93 lakh people had registered on the app in total.
The surge in registrations is possibly due to the new MV act’s stringent provisions, say officials. “It is possible that the sudden surge is due to the fear of fines. But on the whole, we have been seeing a steady increase in downloads,” said C Ramesh, Joint Transport Commissioner of RTA, Telangana. In addition, talks had surfaced recently on how some people had to cough up fines of up to Rs 10,000, just for not having the relevant documents.
The m-Wallet app, which is a digital/mobile wallet, allows you to keep safe all your vehicle-related documents, including the registration certificate (RC), licence, insurance documents, etc, without having to carry the originals. As per the State’s traffic rules, if asked, this online record can be produced in lieu of the originals.
However, several city residents have complaints regarding the limited scope of the app. While the documents taken from Telangana can be stored on the app, that is not the case with those from other States. “I had taken my licence from Kerala, so that does not appear on the app. I think there are other better, more accommodating options,” observed Rithika, a city resident.
The app also does not allow the storage of Pollution Under Control certificates, a common concern raised by several users on the feedback corner on Google Play Store. Meanwhile, officials maintain that fetching databases from other States will not be possible as of now, but noted that the m-Wallet and the T-App Folio will be made more robust soon by adding newer features.