Universal Smart Card Driving License on the anvil

Universal smart card driving licences are on the anvil, the government said Monday.

"The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways ... has decided to modify the format of driving licences to laminated card without chip or smart card type driving licences," Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

The ministry has prescribed a common standard format and design of the driving licence for whole of the country which includes the placement of information and standardisation of fonts, he said.

This ministry through its flagship application called SARATHI (for driving licence) developed by NIC (National Informatics Centre) have a common countrywide database of all driving licence holders.

"Almost 15 crore driving licence records are available in its central repository (National Registry). The SARATHI application has the feature to identify duplicate records in real-time online basis and access information about the challans if any, which facilitates the licencing authority that delinquent drivers do not get a duplicate driving licence," he said.