NEW DELHI: The road transport ministry is considering to bring a new rule to make it mandatory for vehicle owners and driving licence (DL) holders to update their address (Aadhaar), mobile phone number and other details, a move aimed at reining in violators going scot-free and evading penalty.
Sources said the ministry is considering making it a part of the proposed amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act. “There is a need to have some mechanism to track people who are violating rules, particularly frequent offenders, posing risk to other road users. Changing mobile number and applying for a new DL is the easiest way to evade paying penalty and face action,” an official said.
Recently, union road transport secretary V Umashankar gave a hint of the proposed move while speaking at a conference on road safety. He said, “More than Rs 12,000 crore worth of e-challans issued remain unpaid, essentially because the database through which we are enforcing the e-challan system is not good. So, we need to clean up the database and make it more perfect.”
Citing that some DLs and vehicle registration certificates (RCs) on Sarathi and Vahan databases may date back to the 1960s and 70s, and the 1980s and 90s respectively. The old databases has no mobile and Aadhaar numbers. “May be the address is not the same, which means we need to think of certain touch points at which it becomes mandatory for vehicle owners or licence holders to update their details,” Umashanakar said.
He said this will help agencies to know whom to reach and where to reach, and if an e-challan penalty remains unpaid after a certain time, then RC or DL holder becomes cut off from other service requirements. “May be his insurance goes up, registration gets invalidated, cancelled or suspended,” the secretary said.
