Beltala: Processing of driving licences at the city's busiest transport office remained suspended for four working days since April 20 because of an allegedly unannounced technology transition meant to link existing and new data to a central database.

Hundreds of people visiting the office of the public vehicles department (PVD) in Beltala between April 20 and Wednesday this week were surprised to find the transport hub in a limbo and no clarity on what was happening.

The new system, which became operational on Wednesday afternoon, promises ease of access by allowing people to go online and apply for a driving licence, renew it, pay the service fee or seek a change in particulars.

Data pertaining to nearly 15 lakh existing licence-holders got transferred from a server in Beltala through "e-Sarathi" to a central database during the transition. This was in keeping with a directive from the ministry of road transport and highways.

PVD officials said they had issued prior notice that work would remain suspended. Copies of the notice were put up at various places and the driving schools informed that processing of licences would be held up.

But applicants who turned up at the PVD office on consecutive days said they couldn't spot any notice anywhere across the walls of the three-storey building in Beltala. Worse, no one at the counters and desks would explain why work was not getting done.

"The clerk at the cash counter wouldn't receive the licence application fee. After the system started working, officers said if there were to be any error in uploading documents, refunds would not be allowed," said a resident of south Calcutta who visited the office twice in four days to renew his driving licence.

"The system worldwide is to have a parallel method for some time when software is being introduced. This does not seem to be the case here."

Officials in the transport department said the Union ministry of road transport and highways had picked PVD's Beltala office for a pilot project to transfer all data related to licences from the local to a national network. This is a part of the national e-governance plan and, if successful in Beltala, the project would be replicated across regional transport offices in Bengal.

Since the tech transfer, the first document to be issued was a learner's licence. Tanvi Mohta of Kalikrishna Tagore Street was the first one to receive her licence.

An applicant has to visit parivahan.gov.in and go to "driving licence-related services" to start completing any pending formalities relating to licences, including booking a slot for a learner's licence, applying for a duplicate or changing one's address.