RTO rolling out smart cards

16 September 2009

The Regional Transport Office (RTO) here will step into the smart-card age on Wednesday. The RTO is rolling out smart cards under its
computerized services, according to J Purushottam, regional transport officer. The smart cards - one for driving license and the other for registration certificate - will each have a 16-kilobyte random access memory (RAM) chip embedded into them. These cards are made of plastic.

The benefit of these cards, each costing Rs 200, Purushottam stated is gathering of digital data, that is tamper free, easy retrieval, access to such information gathered and creation of a centralized database of driving license and registration certificate details. The bearer of the card will have an insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh in case of death for one year, and Rs 50,000 in case of permanent disability arising out of any accident.
As of now, 2.71 lakh vehicles have been registered with the Mangalore RTO, which in turn has issued 3.69-lakh driving licenses. Vehicle owners have two years time to get their driving licenses and registration certificates converted into digital format (smart cards), the RTO stated, adding that the cards will have the provision to record traffic violations committed by the DL holder, as well as punishment handed out for the same.

The RTO will begin gathering data of all driving licenses and registration certificates issued prior to September 16, 2009 on a priority basis, Purushottam stated, urging all driving license and registration certificate holders to avail the benefit of this scheme in right earnestness. All fresh driving licenses and registration certificates to be issued from Mangalore RTO from Wednesday will be in the form of smart cards.

source times of india