E-driving licence from mid-July
KATHMANDU:
The government has rescheduled its plan to start issuing electronic driving licence. After missing the target twice, the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) is now gearing up to begin issuing the licence from mid-July, the beginning of new fiscal year.
Originally, the department was supposed to start issuing the new licence to seekers from December last year. Later, the project time was extended till March this year with a plan to start issuance of e-driving licences from mid-April.
Officials of the department said that the project had been delayed due to multiple reasons like revision of revenue to be collected from service-seekers, establishing intranet among regional offices and training for the officials.
Today, the department briefed about the progress of the project and presented demo printing of the new licence amid a programme.
“As we have reached the final stage of preparation, we will be able to give the new licence from mid-July,” said Tulasai Prasad Sitaula, secretary at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport.
As per him, the project would be expedited with target to replace all driving licences and bill books with hi-tech smartcard within three to five years.
In the initial phase, government will start issuance of the licence with three licence printers — one each in Kathmandu, Butwal and Lahan — targeting fresh individuals seeking driving licence. Each machine has capacity to print 200,000 copies of licences in a year.
Madhu Sudan Burlakoti, director general of the DoTM, said that as there has been issuance of around 2.4 million licences so far, they would be able to replace all with new licence within maximum of three years.
The new technology based licence is expected to help prevent forgery, falsification and illegal issuance of driving licences. Burlakoti said that one of the main reasons for increase in number of road accidents was fake licence. “We are also mulling over providing portable licence readers to the Traffic Police for checking.”
Indian firm Madras Security Printers has been carrying out the project, which is funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) under a component of ICT Development Project in Nepal. Once the project is ready, the Indian firm which had won the project contract for $1.5 million will also provide necessary support for 15 months.
Besides getting the system ready, Madras Security Printers is also responsible for delivering 160,000 units of e-driving licences. The new licence will contain information, including photo, name, address, blood group, and issuance and expiry date of the driving licence. Furthermore, it will also have a chip which will be used for storing credentials of the licence bearer, such as thumb prints, vehicle registration number and taxes paid to the government and dues.
The Indian firm and DoTM had signed an agreement to replace the existing paper card based licence and bill book in October, 2013.
Source: THT
