Chandigarh, November 3:
In order to sensitize people to upgrade their manual driving licenses, the Punjab Government has launched a special campaign to facilitate people to get digital driving licenses by applying online from home or anywhere.
Divulging the details, State Transport Commissioner Dr. Amarpal Singh said that manual driving License holders were unable to get all services available in SARATHI web application and their Driving license cannot be verified by the enforcement authorities while checking. He added that now in order to facilitate manual Public Driving License holders, a special drive has been launched by the Transport Department. Notably, the driving licenses were being issued manually before implementation of VAHAN and SARATHI applications.
Dr. Amarpal said that earlier, the provision of getting Manual Driving license was available within Licensing & Registering Authority Office and the applicant was required to make multiple visits with physical application and documents, which not only created inconvenience but also gave an opportunity for exploitation of the public.
“Now, in order to tackle this issue and facilitate people, we have decided to start a special drive to get these Driving Licenses updated in SARATHI data base. With the launch of new provision in SARATHI web application, the applicant can apply the changes from home and get registered their details online in the data-base after verification and approval by the concerned authority, he added.
He informed that to apply in SARATHI web application, the Driving License holders should check whether his details were available in SARATHI or not by visiting www.sarathi.parivahan.gov.in or mParivahan mobile app. If the applicant’s details were not reflecting in SARATHI database, then the applicant would get the details updated by visiting at www.punjabtransport.org or www.sarathi.parivahan.gov.in and submit scanned copy of manual Driving License along with required documents.
“The dealing hand will process and verify the documents uploaded by the applicant and append scanned copy of record related to particular Driving License and forward it to Licensing & Registering Authority for approval. Based on the digital file and record attached, the authority concerned will be able to approve or reject the application instantly. Once the application is approved, the license holder will be able to download virtual Driving License in mParivahan mobile app or Digilocker. A Smart Card driving license will also be issued to the applicant,” Dr. Amarpal Singh said.
The state transport commissioner said that as the powers of editing in database has been already disabled in dealing clerk login IDs, to ensure no manipulation of the data is done. With implementation of this module of SARATHI, the applicant is required to visit only once to Licensing & Registering Authority Office for Biometric (Photograph & signatures capturing). Whole process will take not more than 14 days.
“This drive will help the department in improving its digitized data-base, eliminate fake Driving Licenses and ease of service availability to the public” State transport commissioner added. It is pertinent to mention that the VAHAN & SARATHI web applications (designed & developed by NIC under the guidance of MoRTH, Govt. Of India) are being used to provide the services related to Driving License & Registration Certificate in the State.
