Driving licence aspirants and new vehicle owners in the capital are made to wait, at times two to three weeks, to get their driving licence and Registration Certificate (RC) smart cards due to delays by the Transport Department.
In 2008, the department had introduced smart cards, which has a memory chip with all data pertaining to vehicle fitness, insurance and road safety violations, pending challans etc.
The cards also aid in preventing forgery of documents and any manipulation by vehicle owners.
After successful clearance of driving test or registration of vehicles, authorities issue these cards to vehicle owners through speed post. However, there has been inordinate delay in issue of these cards in the last couple of weeks.
Applications for issue of licence and RC books are thus piling up at Regional Transport Authority offices in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts.
“There is a short supply of these cards for the last few days and we are finding it difficult to despatch driving lic-ence and RC book smart cards to vehicle owners,” admits an official from Khairatabad RTA. Same is the case in Ranga Reddy RTA offices as well.
On an average, about 650 new vehicles are registered daily and close to 450 driving licences are issued in the capital alone.
In neighbouring Ranga Reddy district, about 600 new vehicles are registered and nearly 400 driving licences issued daily.
Joint Transport Commissioner (IT) S.A.V. Prasada Rao says the dearth in smart cards was due to the delay by A.P. Technology Services in completing the tendering pr-ocess for supply of cards.
Supply to resume
However, things have been settled and a new private agency finalised. The supply of cards would resume in a couple of days, said Mr. Rao.
