‘About 4.5L driving licences, 50,000 vehicle registration cards dispatched’
Kolkata: Around 4.5 lakh driving licences and 50,000 vehicle registration cards have been sent through postal service by the Transport department since its inception in the months of June and September respectively.
Only 2,500 licences and registration cards have been returned because of incorrect addresses or other technical difficulty and these licences or registration cards are sent to the respective RTOs to ensure that the applicants are able to collect it.
In June this year, state Transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty inaugurated the Smart Card Driving Licence and Vehicle Registration printing and dispatch centre at Beltala Public Vehicles department (PVD). The smart cards have a chip through which one can access the information with regards to the card holders. It can be taken by the fresh applicants against the fee of Rs 200. The delivery is being carried out by IndiaPost.
The state has collaborated with Rosmerta Technologies Limited who established the central printing and dispatch centre at the PVD where the smart cards will be printed with online authentication of address proof and securely locked using the key management system of the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
A motor training school owner alleged that the persons getting trained under his school have been complaining of not receiving the driving licence through post. However, a senior Transport official said that in case of non-payment of required fees, the licences do not get released and except for scattered cases of technical glitches, the official has otherwise heard good
reviews from people.
“After the driving licence gets approved by a RTO, the concerned person receives a message and is informed of each step from printing to dispatch through SMS. It takes around seven to eight days for the driving licence or registration to reach a person,” the official said, while adding that on an average, daily the department is printing and activating around 20,000 to 25,000.
