Issuance of smart driving licences, registration cards off-track due to chip shortage

An employee of an IT company in Kolkata bought a new car in mid 2022 but is yet to receive the smart card for it. There are many like him who have bought new vehicles but due to the shortage of semiconductor chips, they have not been able to receive chip-based driver licences and automobile registration cards, a report in the Economic Times said.

The report quoted anonymous sources as saying that in multiple states tenders for these chip-based documents are yet to be floated.

The report reveals two reasons behind this shortage -- the supply chain disruption due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic.

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A senior official of a motor vehicle department in Kolkata told the publication that no tender process was initiated during the pandemic, and sales of new vehicles skyrocketing in 2021-2022 led to a massive backlog.

Pethi Sarguru, CEO of Versatile Card Technology (VCT) -- one of the largest manufacturers of smart cards used for PAN cards and voter IDs, told the publication that during most of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, the disruption in the supply chain and the Ukraine war caused a shortage of chips, because of which smart drivers’ licence were not issued.

Digilocker has come to the rescue of such vehicle owners who are yet to receive these documents, helping them avert harassment from police officials.

“The authorities had told me to make do with Digilocker or get a paper print out,” the IT employee from Kolkata, who is still waiting for his smart documents, told ET.

Vivek Bhimanwar, Transport Commissioner, Maharashtra said that he expects the shortage to ease in two or three months once the supplier is on-boarded. In Maharashtra tenders have been awarded while in other states it is under process.