Driving license, registration certificate turns 'smart' in Karnataka

Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa today inaugurated the programme of issuing smart card based licenses and registration certificates at a function here.
The license has an accident cover of Rs one lakh for death and Rs 50,000 for permanent disability for a period of one year from the date of its issue, officials said.
The smart card has a microprocessor-based chip 16 Kilo Byte RAM embedded on a plastic card.
Transport department officials said the advantage of this system are digital storage of data, easy access of data, tamper proof and secured operation, creation of centralised state/national data base of vehicles and driving licenses.

These driving licenses and registration certificates would be issued on payment of Rs 200 each, officials said, adding that existing driving licenses and registration certificates should be converted into smart card within two years.
"The smart card also prevents creation of forged documents", Transport minister R Ashok said.

It was launched in five Regional Transport Offices here today and would be progressively introduced in the remaining 50 RTOs in the State in the next six months, he said.
The smart card software was developed by the Karnataka unit of National Informatics Centre.
The project, a brainchild of the Transport department in coordination with private firm Rosemerta Technologies Pvt Ltd under pubic-private-participation model, will cover 82 lakh vehicles and around 90 lakh vehicle users.