From October 1, apply online to get driving licences

From October 1, queues at motor licensing offices and regional transport office (RTOs) are going to thin as the Delhi government has decided to put the entire process of getting a driving licence (except appearing for the tests) online.

State transport minister Kailash Gahlot said this will make Delhi the first state in the country where all RTOs will completely shift application services online. At present, RTOs across the country primarily accept applications manually, despite having an online centralised software built by the Central government.

“From October 1, all the 13 licensing offices of Delhi will be declared as ‘e-RTOs’. This means applications for about 11 transport related services — like obtaining a learner’s or permanent driving licence or getting a registration certificate — will have to be applied for on the website of the transport department. No paper or manual applications will be accepted,” he said.

Gahlot said this would also help prevent corruption in these offices as only electronic transactions and no cash deposits will be allowed. This comes days after the transport department stumbled upon a possible racket where as many as 42 driving licences were illegally issued from a single RTO in a week’s time. The applications that were submitted manually are also missing from the department’s files, a preliminary inquiry in the case so far has revealed.

For those who are unable to fill a form or pay the fee online, the Delhi government has also kept options under the doorstep delivery of service scheme in which an applicant only needs to call 1076 and a facilitator will visit his/her house to fill forms and collect documents.

“We have also opened helpdesks at RTO across the city to help those who are unable to apply on their own. The officials at these helpdesks will fill forms and perform online transactions. Until now, the department has been using a local software for driving licenses. Now, we have synced everything with the Centre’s SAARTHI software which is a cloud-based system, thus helping in data sharing and analysis,” said Varsha Joshi, state transport commissioner.

For a driving licence, appointments for giving biometrics and the driving tests can be chosen from a list of two-hourly slots. But for registration certificate related work, an applicant will be allowed to do a walk-in after filling all forms online.

“The best thing about this new system is that a person will be able to track his application online. Also, SMS alerts informing about the status of an application will be sent to applicants at all stages,” said KK Dahiya, special commissioner (transport).

To test the responsiveness of the RTOs to the new system, the Delhi government had introduced this e-RTO concept on pilot basis in two licensing offices at Vasant Vihar and Janakpuri. “The response was good, but many people filled the forms online and also came to the transport office to fill up paper forms. This led to duplicity. So, we decided to set up helpdesks and will launch an awareness campaign,” he said.