Vijayawada: The AP transport authorities are likely to resume issuing smart cards for registration certificate of vehicles and for driving licences from June in the state.The state government is learnt to have directed the transport authorities to fix the vendor immediately and start issuing the smart cards.The issue of smart cards has been a cause of concern to the vehicle owners and drivers/riders since the time of Covid-19 outbreak. At that time, the reasons for non-issue of such cards was attributed to the financial constraints. Subsequently, the previous government stopped the issue of smart cards for some time and even avoided collecting Rs 200 at the time of registration of vehicles and issue of driving licence for the smart card so that nobody could question them for non-issue of cards.After the change of guard in the state, the TD-led alliance government reviewed the policy and issued directions to the transport authorities to resume the issue of smart cards by calling the tenders to fix the vendors. Accordingly, the process is on.The transport authorities maintain that initially, they start issuing the smart cards to those who paid the fee. They would next issue smart cards to those who registered their vehicles and took driving licence.A senior transport official said, “We may resume issuing smart cards for those who paid the fee and yet to get the cards may be from 2023.”The importance of having RC and DL to be handy gained significance when the AP government revised the minimum fine to `1,000 from `100 for a series of violations of vehicular traffic and for non-production of RC and DL when asked by the law enforcing authorities.Though the RC and DL are acceptable legally in digital format and their printouts having digital signatures are also acceptable, all vehicle owners and commuters may not be able to afford having a smart phone with Internet connectivity to show them in Digilocker and by other means. With the paper documents are vulnerable for wear and tear in the course of time, there is a need for having secured format of such documents.A traffic ACP in the city said, “With the stringent norms in Motor Vehicle Rules being enforced, a police constable is empowered to impose a minimum fine of Rs 1,000 for violation of traffic norms unlike the earlier practice of having such power with the circle inspector. We will also take up the issue with the transport authorities for the issue of smart cards for RC and DL so that they can be produced on demand and the commuters can avoid paying the fine.”
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