Bhubaneswar, Oct. 8: The state government has decided to streamline the services available under the state transport department by providing these facilities online to reduce rush at the regional transport offices.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of officials presided by chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi at the state secretariat here yesterday.

Transport commissioner Madhusudan Padhi, who was present at the meeting, said: "Many services offered by our department will be provided online."

There are 38 regional transport offices across the state.

The transport department offers 31 types of services such as vehicle registration, issuance of driving licence, trade certificate and route permits and change of ownership.

Padhi directed the departmental officials to make the Vahan portal fully operational by January next and upgrade the Sarathi software.

Vahan is a comprehensive system related to vehicle registration.

The department has come up with this software to computerise all the process involving vehicle registration, issue of fitness certificates and permits.

Sarathi is a comprehensive system for issuance of driving licence.

The transport commissioner said: "We are installing new versions of Sarathi and Vahan. After upgradation of these softwares, people will not need to visit the regional transport officers for work such as applying for licence, fitness certificate and other similar services. It will help the officials to concentrate on other important work."

The new version of the Sarathi software has been already installed in some regional transport offices of the state.