Patna: The transport department on Monday launched the DigiLocker through which people can keep copies of their driving licence and vehicle registration certificate (RC) on their mobile phones.
These digital documents will be treated as valid and there will be no need to carry the hard copy for any verification. Transport secretary Sanjay Kumar Agarwal launched the service in the presence of Patna district transport officer (DTO) Ajay Kumar Thakur.
Earlier, there was no legal validity of driving licences and RCs saved on mobile but now, the traffic police and other government officials have to treat the DigiLocker driving licence and RC copies on a par with the original. The government of India provides the DigiLocker to every individual holding an Aadhaar card.
"Once a person keys in his/ her licence and RC numbers, their details will get uploaded automatically from the central computer database connected with the (Union) ministry of road transport and highway. The application matches the name and the date of birth before automatically uploading the documents," Agarwal said.
The DigiLocker also works offline and a document once downloaded can be accessed without Internet connection.
Agarwal clarified that the licence and RC will not be valid if anyone just keeps a photograph or scanned copy of the documents. "These documents must be downloaded from the central server database," he said.
There is another section in the DigiLocker called "uploaded documents" in which one can save a document after clicking its photograph (file size up to 1GB). In the DigiLocker, one cannot take the screenshot of "issued documents".
Only people with Aadhaar can use this application as one will get a one-time password (OTP) on the mobile number registered with the Aadhaar database.
"Many people don't want to carry valuable documents owing to fear of losing them. But with this service, there is no fear of losing licence, RC and other documents," Agarwal said.
The transport department has written to all district magistrates, superintendents of police and the traffic SP to allow the DigiLocker as valid document. A notification was also issued on Monday.
Agarwal also inspected the Patna DTO office and interacted with residents who were at the counters to apply for different work.
