Learner’s licence in 10 min

Want a learner’s driving licence? All you have to do is answer 10 questions to clear the test. An in a jiffy — 10 minutes actually, walk away with your licence.

On Monday, the state Transport Department started a computerised system to issue learner’s licence at the Mumbai Central Regional Transport Office (RTO).

The procedure to avail of a regular driving licence, however, will be the same as it is now. Also, there will be no change in time taken to issue the regular driver’s licence. After filling up a form, applicants have to give an objective test spanning less than two minutes.

An air-conditioned classroom with 50 seats and a giant screen has been set up at a cost of Rs 14 lakh for this purpose.
Each seat will have red, green and yellow electronic buttons connected to the main computer. The buttons represent options for a particular question.

An instructor at the RTO will conduct the test. Applicants will be asked 10 random questions of a bank of 200 questions. Within 10 seconds each of these objective questions has to be answered.

The result will flash on the screen. An applicant scoring at least 60 per cent gets a printout of the learner’s licence. “Those who fail the test can reappear. This process will at least avoid people from blaming the RTO for favouring certain people while issuing learner’s licences,” said Transport Commissioner Deepak Kapoor.

Until now, the tests were conducted on an answersheet where the number of questions varied from person-to-person. And applicant’s received their learner’s licences after a couple of days.

Kapoor said plans were afoot to set up similar test centres at all RTOs across Mumbai in the coming months. For the remaining 41 RTOs across the state, it will be another 18 months before such a facility is set up.