On September 29, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways issued a Standard Operating Procedure which would help vehicle owners switch to digital copies of vehicle ownership documents, licenses and challans instead of carrying them in physical form.
The statement issued by the ministry highlighted that the new amendments to the Central Motor Vehicle Rules 1989 will be effective from October 1, 2020 and the use of electronic monitoring will lead to avoiding harassment of drivers. The centre has also urged the states and union territories to follow suit.
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Access Through Apps
Vehicle owners can carry digital copies of required documents using the DigiLocker or mParivahan app instead of carrying physical copies of the app. The mParivahan app, developed by the NIC under Digital India and is available on Android as well as iOS devices. Made exclusively for RTO related services, it keeps your insurance, digital licence and vehicle registration number handy. Registration can be done with an OTP verification with your mobile number, and your virtual RTO documents can be stored in the app.
The Digilocker app is connected to your Aadhaar card or UIDAI number and is available on iOS as well as android. It is a cloud storage space for all your important documents including voter ID, pan card, and other government-issued documents. It gives you the bandwidth of 1 GB space on your cloud account linked to your UIDAI id. Documents that have been uploaded by the user can be digitally signed by the eSign facility (similar to self-attestation). This eliminates the need for the physical hard copies of the document to be present.
Documents that have been verified digitally will not need to go through physical forms of inspection. Law enforcement can simultaneously check the license status and online verification of the vehicle from their eChallan app.
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