BENGALURU: Curious to know what your new driving licence and registration certificate smart card will look like? Wait for a fortnight, says the state transport department. With the new format for DL and RC finalised, the department is waiting for the Centre to send the software kit.
“We need the software to develop the module. We have the inventory as the card is of the same size. The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) also needs to give approval on receiving the kit and once that is done, we will start printing the cards. The rate for converting the card is Rs 200,” Additional Commissioner of Transport (e-governance and environment) Shivraj Patil said, adding that the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has assured him that the kit would be sent in 15 days.
With the enactment of the new Motor Vehicles Act, the central government had said that significant changes would be made to the DL and RC. The government had also decided to allot similar functions to both DL and RC, according to the MoRTH.
While the Centre says that the project will be implemented from next month, the move may take a while in the state, and is expected to be implemented by November 15, said a transport department source. The DL and RC cards will be printed with the same design on the front and back, with a microchip in front and QR code at the back.
As of now, each state has separate processes for the DL and RC, and the new format will bring in a unified system across the country. There is no deadline set for the shift, but cardholders can get them changed while registering address change at the RTO office.
The current DL and RC format was done with the help of Rosmerta Technologies. The NIC is functioning from New Delhi, under the Union information technology ministry, and handles the Vahan portal for vehicle registration and driving licence-related services, as well as an application called Sarathi, which has a common countrywide database of all driving licence holders.