The hike in penalties for traffic rule violations has brought a flood of applications to regional transport offices (RTO) across the state with the officials at district levels expressing concerns that they would run out of the driving licence (DL) smart cards.
Transport department officials on Monday held an emergency meeting to discuss the developments post the Centre’s amendment to the Motor Vehicle Act, which brought a ten-fold hike in penalties for offences like driving without a valid DL, pollution under control certificate (PUCC) and vehicle documents.
“The number of applications started going up in the first week of September and we have seen it rising above 20% in the last one week. The RTOs in Dharwad, Mysuru and Ramanagara expressed concerns about the availability of cards. We reassured them that there is enough stock to meet the demand,” said Joint Commissioner for Transport Shivaraj Patil.
Patil explained that as per the tender condition, the vendor who supplies the smart cards will have to keep a stock to meet the demand for the next 15 days. "At the normal flow, we used to issue 3.20 lakh DLs every month. In September, the number has already crossed 3.40 lakh and is likely to reach 4 lakh, which is nearly a 30% rise. We have alerted the (smart card) vendor. The buffer zone is enough to provide additional supply,” he said.
Senior officials said the demand will go up further in district centres, where most of the cases of driving without DL go unnoticed due to the lack of intense monitoring as seen in bengaluru.
In Mysuru, about 2000 people submitted applications at a special drive organised on Sunday for DL enrolment. Official from a Mysuru RTO said it was a welcome development to see people lining up to comply with the rules after the fine for driving without licence has gone up from Rs 500 to Rs 5,000.
“There are four motor vehicle inspectors who have to manage checkpost and check vehicles besides monitoring vehicle driving test. It may take some time before we can process the applications that are flooding to the RTO,” he said.
A senior official said the issue has highlighted the staff shortage in the department. “We need at least 300 MV inspectors in Bengaluru but the process to hire even 150 of them has hit a hurdle due to cases filed in the court. The issue will be brought to the notice of the minister,” he said.