Smart driving license backlog piles up due to high volume of service seekers

KATHMANDU, Dec 11: The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) had started operation of mass printer nearly a month ago and during that time the backlog of smart driving license was 600,000 to 700,000 and now after a month of operation of mass printer the backlog still remains the same.

According to Tirtha Raj Khanal, information officer of DoTM, backlogs of smart driving license will take around six to seven months to get cleared.

“Mass printer came into operation nearly a month ago and since then the smart driving license is printed from mass printer without any disturbances but still there are around 600,000 to 700,000 backlogs remaining which will take around six, seven months to get cleared,” said Khanal.

The department had started distributing smart driving license from December, 2015 but the system is yet to be smooth. There are many applicants still waiting to get their smart driving license even after the operation of mass printer.

Earlier, the officials of DoTM had claimed that the smart driving licenses backlog will be cleared within four or five months but analyzing the speed of DoTM, it will take more time than their estimation to clear all the backlogs.

“The number of new service seekers is increasing on a daily basis which is the main reason that backlogs of smart driving license still needs six to seven months to get cleared,” said Khanal.

According to officials of DoTM, the department gets around 7,000 new applicants every day. There are 700,000 backlogs still left to be printed. This means that 700,000 people who have passed all the tests for driving license are waiting for up to one year to acquire their cards. One can obtain smart driving license after he/she have passed the written exam and completed the trial taken by offices under DoTM.

Madras Security Printers, an Indian company, had bagged the contract to supply and install mass printers. The two parties had signed a contract agreement for the same in April 2019. Earlier, the DoTM had roped in a local firm to print smart driving license.

However, it severed the contract with the firm as the driving licenses printed by it failed to meet the specified quality.

Earlier, the operation of the mass printer could not materialize due to the problem in installation, the department gave reasons that workers were not able to operate mass printer properly as they were not trained and the machines were brought from foreign country and Nepal even does not have resources to repair the machine.

Later on, the printer supplier provided staffs of DoTM with the required training to operate the printer. The printer can operate for 10-12 hours in a day. It has the capacity to produce 500 smart licenses per hour.