Universal smart card driving license to roll out soon, says Nitin Gadkari

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government has recently decided to modify the format of driving licenses to smart card type driving licences.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said, "The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways ... has decided to modify the format of driving licences to laminated card without chip or smart card type driving licences."

“The ministry has prescribed a common standard format and design of the driving licence for whole of the country which includes the placement of information and standardisation of fonts,” he said.

“This ministry through its flagship application called SARATHI (for driving licence) developed by NIC (National Informatics Centre) have a common countrywide database of all driving licence holders,” the union minister added.  

"Almost 15 crore driving licence records are available in its central repository (National Registry). The SARATHI application has the feature to identify duplicate records in real-time online basis and access information about the challans if any, which facilitates the licencing authority that delinquent drivers do not get a duplicate driving licence," Gadkari concluded.

Currently, some states like Maharashtra and Delhi offer smart card type driving licenses with chips, while other states like Uttar Pradesh use laminated cards without chips.

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