Meeting for licence on campus deferred

The Delhi government’s transport department has indefinitely postponed a meeting with colleges to discuss empowering them with the authority to issue learners’ driving licence to their students. The meeting was scheduled to be held on August 28, officials said.

The Delhi government had issued a notification on August 7 empowering directors and principals of educational institutions/universities/colleges to conduct learners’ licence test and issue certificates on campus. The scheme was launched on August 18. Delhi transport minister Kailash Gahlot had earlier this month said that the policy is expected to benefit around two lakh students enrolled in higher education institutions.

A learner’s licence is valid for up to six months.

So far, only four institutions — Delhi University’s Acharya Narendra Dev College and Delhi government-affiliated Industrial Training Institute, Pusa, GB Pant Institute of Technology and Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies — were empowered to issue licence. Only two students each from Acharya Narendra Dev College and ITI, Pusa have so far been issued a licence.

“We will extend the scheme to all colleges once we review its functioning in four colleges where it has been launched. We need to see first if there are any deficiencies and if it’s working out well before we launch it in all colleges,” said Gahlot.

The transport department had written to registrars of 18 educational institutions such as Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia, GGS Indraprastha University and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, among others, to discuss the scheme. “The meeting has been postponed till further deliberation on the framework of the scheme,” said, a Delhi government official.

Most institutes said they were looking forward to the meeting but have not received any further schedule from the government yet. “We had received a communication regarding discussion on the policy, but were told it has been postponed,” said an official from Jamia Millia Islamia.

IIT-D director V Ramgopal Rao said it is a good scheme but the implementation needs to be discussed, adding that they do not allow students to use motorised vehicles on campus.

First Published: Aug 30, 2018 03:22 IST