Nepalgunj, December 20

Bheri Transport Management Nepalgunj Office’s failure to distribute smart driving licence has adversely affected service seekers of different districts.

Around 45,000 people are waiting for the smart driving licence. Acting Chief Purna Bahadur Khatri at the transport management office said service seekers, who paid fee a year ago, were yet to get the licence. The government had introduced smart driving licence four years ago and the Department of Transport Management is printing smart licences. “People have yet to get licences as smart driving licences to be printed outnumber the capacity of printing machine,” said Khatri.

Driver Ishwor Regmi said they would have to produce receipt issued by the transport office during police check and that was a nuisance. The government had introduced the smart driving licence with the view to replacing the hand-written one. But, printing smart licences below the demand has deprived people of their handy licence cards.

After the centre included department of transport under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure Development, the responsibility of printing, providing smart licences fell under the province governments. Printing of licences has yet to start in Province 5.