December 26: Acquiring a smart license is becoming more of a challenge each day. People are struggling to get their driving licenses due to the shortage of license cards with the government. Although the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) recently purchased 1.4 million smart cards from the international market, it is yet to start printing those cards. To address this issue, the DoTM is making preparations to print 10,000 smart license cards per day. The DoTM aims to overcome this problem within the next four to six months.

As there is an immediate demand of just 700,000 cards, the rest of the cards will be kept in stock for future requirement, said Dr Lok Nath Bhusal, the director of DoTM, while conversing with New Business Age. “The Department of Transport Management has a machine capable of printing four cards per minute. We are preparing to print the cards immediately by managing three shifts, in the morning, afternoon and evening,” said Bhusal.

The recently purchased cards were tested in an international lab before bringing them to the department. The work of printing those cards will start this week itself, said the departments director Bhusal.

He dismissed rumors that the department was planning to scrap the cards purchased some time ago as it was difficult to distinguish those cards from fake ones.

“Smart cards have been brought in sufficiently. The DoTM, its subordinate offices and the traffic police also have card testing machines available to check whether the cards are genuine or not. That is why the cards will not be cancelled. Instead, we are thinking of including barcodes on the license,” said the Director Bhusal.

However, the traffic police officials say that they lack of sufficient devices needed to test smart licenses. Spokesperson of the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division SP Sanjiv Sharma Das said that there is only one device at the office. He said that if any license is to be checked or monitored, they need to obtain the details by contacting the Department of Transport Management.

He, however, said that this was not a big problem and necessary work was being done in coordination with the department.

The smart license cards were last printed last in July 2020. Since then, the printing of such cards has not been regular. Distribution has been affected due to a halt in printing for a protracted period.

Millions of vehicle across the country are awaiting for smart licenses. Some of them have passed the test and applied for new license, while others are awaiting to get smart licenses after renewal of their expired paper licenses.

According to the department, printing was affected due to the lack of cards required for licenses. “Printing software, printers and cards are required to print the license. There was a problem with the card delivery which has now been resolved. That is why we are about to start printing,” said Director Bhusal.

The software for the smart license was developed by Madras Security Press Printers. After the implementation of the software system in 2017, the department itself took the responsibility of printing driving license. The department had called for tender last year after they ran out of cards purchased earlier. In the month of November of the same year, a French company SELP got the contract to bring the cards.

According to the agreement between the department and SELP, the company had to hand over 1.4 million cards to the department within 90 days. However, the company could not deliver the cards on time due to various technical reasons as well as the Covid-19 pandemic and thus, the problem became much worse. According to the DoTM, the cards have been received one year after the agreement was signed.

At present, drivers who have passed the trial and test and those who have applied for renewal are given a trial driver's license after paying the revenue. Such license is valid only for one year. Earlier, the trial license was said to be a temporary alternative for the time being while the DoTM was not able to print the smart license cards.