BHUBANESWAR: Days after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced another three-month breather for the people to get their vehicle documents ready, the Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) across the State are now witnessing a drop in the rush of learners’ licence and driving licence applicants. Reason: Applicants are not appearing for tests on their scheduled date.
The fear of hefty fine had led people to queue up at the RTOs where the officials struggled to cope with the steep rise in applications of learners’ licence and driving licence. “People are booking the slots but are not appearing for the tests. If a learner’s licence or driving licence applicant does not appear on the day when he/she has been provided the slot, then a penalty is being imposed on them,” a State Transport Authority official said.
“When an applicant remains absent instead of rescheduling his/her slot, then we are unable to provide the vacant slot to another applicant,” he added. RTOs are charging `50 fee from learner’s licence absentee and Rs 300 fee from driving licence absentee. The applicants can reschedule their slots a day before their scheduled date without any cost following which the same can be allotted to another applicant, the STA official said.
“During peak days, about 10,500 learners’ licences were being issued in Odisha. There are still about 4 lakh learners’ licence applications pending in the State,” said Transport Commissioner-cum-Chairman of State Transport Authority Sanjeeb Panda. The Transport Commissioner also advised the learners’ licence applicants to regularly check their slot availability on parivahan.gov.in as there are days when either the slots are vacant due to cancellation by other applicants or the capacity of a particular Regional Transport Office has been enhanced to process more applications by installing new computers.
In November, Odisha Government had relaxed verification of documents under Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 by three more months in view of heavy rush at RTOs and pollution under control centres for driving licence, registration and pollution certificates across the State.