Telangana: RTA to temporarily issue Driving Licence, RCs without electronic chips

The shortage of these electronic chips that are embedded in the licence and RCs is said to have resulted due to issues in importing them from abroad

Hyderabad: Shortage of electronic chips is likely to result in the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) temporarily resorting to issue of Driving Licence (DL) and Certificate of Registration (RC) without the chip embedded, from December first week.

The shortage of these electronic chips that are embedded in the licence and RCs is said to have resulted due to issues in importing them from abroad.

To put a check on the use of fake or duplicate driving licences and RCs, the transport officials had introduced the use of PVC made electronic chip embedded smart cards for motorists. An electronic driver’s license (eDL, electronic driver license, electronic driving license) is an official document enhanced with an electronic chip, which stores the holder’s personal data, both biographical and biometrical, for verification.

However, it is learnt that for the last two months, authorities have either completely stopped issuing or only issuing fewer cards. This is directly being attributed to the reduced import of electronic chips mostly from China and Japan. Apart from restrictions imposed on imports from China, the Russia-Ukraine war too has come to impact the supplies.

It is learnt that around 5 lakh driving licences or certificates of registration are pending to be issued and piled up at various regional offices.

Sources said the transport department authorities had already approached the State government with a request to allow issuing the piled up cards without the electronic chip, and received a positive response.

Thus, the RTA officials have decided to clear the pending driving licence and RCs to motorists in normal PVC cards without the electronic chips, until the chips are available again, probably in two to three months.

On the other side, with the issuing of the driving licence and RCs with no security feature as in the electronic chip smart cards, there is a high chance of identity theft and the cards being forged by fraudsters.

However, officials maintain that this is a temporary arrangement and very soon the smart cards will be made available.