Driving licences to be uniform across India

The government will soon notify final rules regarding uniform driving licences across the country, a government source told Moneycontrol.

“The government will standardise the format of driving licence across India,” the source said adding that the licence has to belong to “Union of India”.

A senior government official also said that the driving licences were being used to promote the respective states which should not happen.

“Each driving licence from respective state bears different color and format... We need to bring uniformity,” he said.

The official said that the existing licence owners would be given option to get their licences replaced with new ones.

“It will be voluntary and can be replaced… The new ones, however, will have same format,” he said.

Source: Ministry of Road Transport and Highways

The ministry of road transport and highways had issued a draft notification in October regarding standardisation of driving licences. It had invited comments regarding any objection till November 30.

According to the notification, the new driving licences would be valid from July 2019 and would be "smart cards".

The card would be a "laminated card type or Smart Card type driving licence, and shall contain a QR code and with or without NFC enabled," the notification said.

The new licence will be issued under the name of “Indian Union Driving Licence” and will bear details such as name of the card holder, his/her address, blood group, organ donation consent, date of issue, validity period and type of vehicle among other things.

Union minister, Nitin Gadkari, has also said previously that the government was preparing database for all the licence holders to prevent sale of bogus licences in India.

“To check issuance of multiple licensees to any individual, the government is creating a database of driving licences. At present, getting a licence is much easier in India and there are instances where individuals possess multiple licences issued by different states,” Gadkari has said.

In November, the Centre also issued notification to allow carrying e-copy of driving licence and vehicle registration certificate (RC) instead of a physical copy.