DigiLocker app will soon have emission and insurance certificates

Will be accepted by traffic police once the government issues the relevant notification

All four documents a driver needs to carry on him will soon be available on the DigiLocker app.

This means, in addition to the currently available two documents (Driver’s Licence and Registration Certificate), motorists will have Emission Test Certificate and Vehicle Insurance Certificate too on their DigiLocker app. This will free drivers from the hassle of carrying hard copies of the documents for verification either by the traffic police or RTO officials.

DigiLocker is government of India’s cloud platform for storage, sharing and verification of documents and certificates. Many government documents can be fetched directly from registered issuers, and saved in the app.

Transport Commissioner B. Dayananda said Sarathi 4 — the application of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, which provides a pan-India database of drivers — has been implemented at all RTOs in Bengaluru. “With Sarathi 4, the cumbersome procedure of downloading the DL and the RC will also become seamless,” he said.

“The integration of emission test certificates into the app is almost completed. For Vehicle Insurance Certificates to be integrated, however, multiple insurance firms need to be on board. The e-governance department has begun talks with firms and we are confident that we will get all of them on board soon,” Mr. Dayananda said.

Document on app not accepted

Despite DigiLocker being an app developed by the Government of India, traffic police who stop motorists, often refuse to accept licences and registration certificates saved in the DigiLocker app, and demand physical copies, turning the app facility useless.

“As it stands today, there has been no notification from the government ratifying documents on DigiLocker as an authentic and acceptable for verification,” said R. Hitendra, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Bengaluru.

This, too, is set to change. Mr. Dayananda said with an updated version of their services on the app, they were also working on a government notification ratifying documents on DigiLocker as genuine and acceptable for verification.

“Once there is a formal notification, we will ask our men to accept DigiLocker documents,” Mr. Hitendra said.