The Ernakulam RTO office has issued its first driving licence under the Sarathi scheme after Kerala switched over to the Transport Mission Mode Project’s flagship uniform pan-India application Sarathi for issuing driving licence.
The app enables issue of new driving licence and renewal of licence. Priority has been given to new licences, since the process was held up from February due to non-availability of the printed forms. The introduction of the new scheme would speed up the issuing of new laminated licence the very day that a candidate appears for the driving test, said an RTO official.
Vahan, another web application, developed along with Sarathi by National Informatics Centre (NIC) for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), is meant for registration of vehicles.
With the introduction of Sarathi, the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) aims to bring down touts, crowding in offices and number of visits to RTO offices to avail of different services.
Sarathi covers licence renewal, duplicate licence renewal, international driving permit, learner’s licence and licence-related fee and charges.
Vehicle registration, permit, taxes, fitness and enforcement comes under Vahan. With the switchover to Vahan, multiple visits to the offices of the MVD, extensive paperwork, queues, middlemen, and bribes can be avoided. All vehicle and driving licence records in the State have been integrated by the NIC into the repository.