Punjab: Chip shortage slams brakes on smart driving licences, registration certificates

Scores of motorists who have applied for a driving licence (DL), registration certificate or renewal of these documents are a harried lot for the past over two months due to delay in the issuance of smart cards at regional transport authority (RTA) offices across Punjab.

Authorities attribute it to global chip shortage and said the backlog will be cleared soon. Confirming the delay in issuing DLs and RCs, secretary, Bathinda RTA, Rajdeep Brar said: “Our domain is limited to approving the documents and printing of smart cards is done at the state level in Chandigarh.” Transport officials say it may take a couple of months to streamline the process.

An official at the Faridkot RTA said applicants are being advised to download a soft copy of the RC on their mobile phone, take a printout and carry it with them till new cards are issued. The Bathinda RTA office gets about 100 DL applications per day whereas the daily average of applications for RCs is close to 250.

The vehicle dealers who hand over the RCs to owners are also at the receiving end. “The delay in issuance of smart cards is on the part of the state government, but we get harassed by customers who have purchased new vehicles from us. We provide registration plate and send owners a soft copy of the RC, but over a two-month wait for a smart card is a long time,” said an employee working with a car showroom on the Ferozepur road in Ludhiana.

“After a customer buys a new vehicle, the agency concerned completes works for the RC. After all the paperwork, the file is submitted online and a private agency outsourced by the state government provides home delivery of the RC. But for the last more two months, the RCs are not being sent and customers are complaining about the delay,” said Ram Krishan, general manager of an automobile agency in Bathinda.

Secretary, RTA Ludhiana, Narinder Singh Dhaliwal said the problem is prevailing for the past couple of months due to delay in printing of cards from Chandigarh.

“I submitted an application for DL a month ago after completing the mandatory driving test. But I have not received the printed DL by post. When I visited the RTA office, officials failed to give a reason for the delay,” said an applicant.

Secretary, state transport department, Vikas Garg said the RTAs have been facing a shortage of cards for printing for a few weeks. “There was a global shortage of smart cards and the situation has improved now. We clearing the backlog and releasing cards,” said Garg.