“Three technical persons of the firm have arrived, and they are studying the current licensing system and record keeping to develop the appropriate software,” said Sudarshan Dhakal, director general of the department.
After the implementation of the project, driving licences and vehicle registration, informally known as blue book, will be changed into smartcards with all the vital information stored on them. Dhakal said that the issuance of e-driving licences and blue books would start from next year, and everyone applying for a licence would be able to get the new electronic licence from 2015.
The Indian firm will be establishing a contact office at the department as part of its preparations. It will install the hardware, develop the software, build the networks and train the staff to operate the system. As per the agreement, the project work will be completed by December 2014, according to the department.
The ADB has provided US$ 2.3 million as grant assistance to the government to implement the electronic driving licence and vehicle registration system under its ICT Development Project. Three firms, Madras Security Printers of India, Indra Sistemas SA of Spain and IRIS Corporation Berhad of Malaysia, had been short listed to bid for the project. The Indian firm bagged the contract as its technical and financial proposals were adjudged to be the best. It has quoted a price of US$ 1.49 million.
The department said that the Indian company will have to deliver 160,000 units of electronic driving licences under the contract. The contractor will provide a three-year warranty on the hardware and software that it will be installing to issue the licence and blue book.
The government has issued more than 2 million driving licences till date. In the first phase, the department plans to replace the existing licences with electronic cards and start issuing them to new applicants. The new licensing provision based on smartcard technology is expected to help prevent counterfeiting of licences and blue books besides keeping electronic records of all the vehicle owners in a scientific way.
The department has been working to implement the hi-tech machine readable electronic driving licences and blue books for the last three years. The project had originally been planned to be implemented by 2010. However, it failed to proceed as expected due the procedural delays and an investigation by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority for possible irregularities.
No comments:
Post a Comment