BENGALURU: Even before motorists in the city could come to terms with the new increased penalties for traffic violations, the city traffic police sent them into a tizzy on Thursday by claiming that anyone caught for violations would have to show a hard copy of the vehicle insurance, while other documents would be accepted in electronic format.
As news of this spread across on social media, it generated a lot of criticism online and on Friday, the Bangalore Traffic Police clarified that all documents would be accepted in electronic format. Several users pointed out the irony of asking for a hard copy in the IT capital of the world and said that in November last year, the union government had allowed for documents to be used in e-format.
On Friday, BTP again tweeted saying that as per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways advisory, all documents in electronic form presented through Digilocker or Parivahan platform will be valid.
This means that documents, including insurance papers, can now be displayed in electronic form. Explaining the logic behind the earlier decision, Joint Commissioner of Police (traffic), B R Ravikanthe Gowda said, “Other documents for vehicles are issued by government agencies and can be digitally verified, but this is not the case with insurance policies given by private companies. We will accept them in electronic form for now. We will have a meeting on this and take the final decision.”