Recently a Vadodara-based insurance agent, Ram Shah, made it to the news for sticking his driver’s licence and other vehicle documents to his helmet and his bike, after the imposition of heavy fines for flouting traffic rules. What a way to make police officers rethink pulling you over. You too could avoid fines but in a smarter way.
“For non-commercial vehicles, we are checking insurance papers and pollution certificate apart from the driver’s licence and registration certificate. We are accepting virtual licences, though most commuters are seen presenting the physical copy of their documents. For commercial vehicles, we also check their permit and fitness certificate,” says GC Rajaratnam, Deputy Transport Commissioner of Visakhapatnam district.
Carrying a Driving Licence (DL) and Registration Certificate (RC) along is old school; you can carry them in your smartphones through government-launched mobile applications, DigiLocker and mParivahan.
Both these applications allow you to store your documents virtually.
- The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) issued an advisory to the States last year to accept Driving Licence, Registration Certificate or other documents in ‘electronic form’, presented through platforms DigiLocker and mParivahan, as valid under Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. People can show these virtual copies on demand by any police officer in uniform or any other officer authorised by the State Government in this behalf.
DigiLocker
The government launched DigiLocker in July 2015 under its Digital India initiative. The app allows the registered users to store documents and certificates like driving licence, vehicle registration in digital format.
To store your licence details in DigiLocker, download the app from Google Playstore or iOS App Store. You can sign in through a One Time Password-based verification process. Scanned copies of the licence and other documents can be uploaded in pdf, jpg, jpeg, png, bmp and gif file types in this cloud-based app.
The statistics on DigiLocker’s official website states that there are over 28.12 million users. Maharashtra, with 14,44,295 users, has the highest number of registered users, followed by Uttar Pradesh (11,60,411) and Tamil Nadu (8,38,552).
mParivahan
mParivahan app was launched by transport minister Nitin Gadkari in January 2017. The app is available for android users on Google Playstore. You can register your mobile number through an OTP-based verification process.
The app, which has over five million downloads on Playstore, allows its registered users to create a virtual copy of their RC and DL.
A copy of your RC can be made by entering your chassis number and engine number. Similarly, the app will ask for your date of birth to create a virtual copy of your driver’s licence. The virtual copies can be downloaded and stored for offline usage. They also allow you to generate QR codes for RC and DL, which can be printed and pasted on the vehicle. Ideal if you like to flaunt your documents like Ram.
The users can also procure details like the name of the owner, date of registration, age of the vehicle by entering the car number. The app claims personal details like the phone number and the address of the owner will not be given out to public.