Team-BHP - Vehicle Papers on smartphone - Telangana takes the lead
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As part of the 'Digital Telangana' program, Telangana is getting ready to release an App to enable motorists to carry license and vehicle related documents in an Electronic Form. The first-of-its-kind initiative in India will benefit over 60 lakh driving licence holders and 80 lakh vehicle owners in the state.

The mobile application, developed and tested by transport department officials, is likely to be unveiled by the February-end. Once the App is operational, there is a one time registration with the mobile number or Aadhar number. It is not clear whether based on info provided by the motorist, whether the app will retrieve the documents from RTO records or whether one needs to scan and store the documents.

At the time of launch, facility will be enabled for License and RC, with support for other documents to be added in due course. Multiple E-RC is supported and one can share the E-RC with others. License info obviously cannot be shared.

It is not clear what platforms the app will be available on.

Source: ETAuto

Good Initiative. Hope they include scans so that pollution and other non governmental issued documents can also be added. An option for reminders also will be useful.

No more hassle to carry all the documents especially the license. Chances of loosing the documents are now Nil :)

Awesome move and this needs to be implemented nationally on a fast track basis.
However, a few questions come to mind.

1. Earlier traffic cops used to confiscate the license in case of any issue. How will this happen now. Will they confiscate the phone?
2. If I drive my friends vehicle without the app how do I prove that its not a stolen vehicle ?

Till these are sorted paper would still prevail. There may be answers but need more clarity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by @Chaand (Post 3913285)
Awesome move and this needs to be implemented nationally on a fast track basis.
However, a few questions come to mind.

1. Earlier traffic cops used to confiscate the license in case of any issue. How will this happen now. Will they confiscate the phone?
2. If I drive my friends vehicle how to I prove that its not a stolen vehicle?

Till these are sorted paper would still prevail. There may be answers but need more clarity.

To answer your questions,

1. I am ROTFL on this one. I am sure you are joking. Nonetheless, Confiscating the DL is not the right way to deal with things. These are all those gray areas which you can't expect the official app to support obviously. Cops can always issue you an e-challan or even suspend your DL if needed

2. How do you do that today? The e-Version of the same documents will continue to be available through this app. And if push comes to shove police can always insist on seeing the hard copy of the document. Typically, you may need to go to the designated office at an appointed time with your docs.

I am hoping you are not thinking that this initiative is meant to do away with physical copies altogether. It is just an initiative to ensure that you do not need to carry all the documents physically at all hours.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zappo (Post 3913290)
To answer your questions,

1. I am sure you are joking. Nonetheless, Confiscating the DL is not the right way to deal with things.


LOL. This still happens very regularly at least in Mumbai!
Fines need to be paid online, but licenses are still confiscated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zappo (Post 3913290)

I am hoping you are not thinking that this initiative is meant to do away with physical copies altogether.

I understand that its an alternative arrangement.

Very good news! Personally, I H-A-T-E paper and prefer electronic versions of any & everything. This is surely better than carrying physical copies of documents. However, I have an even better solution. Why don't transport departments create an app for the RTO officers instead? Asking car owners to carry 'papers' is an old system.

Think about it - who has better access to genuine car records than the RTO itself? If any car is pulled over, the traffic policeman can enter the registration number in his smartphone app and see all details himself (with a picture of the owner). In an ideal world, the database would have owner information, fitness validity, PUC, insurance details, any outstanding traffic tickets, any police complaints on the car (including theft) etc.

Yeah, I know it's a long way off, but one can surely hope :). For now, I'll be happy if all RTOs across India accept e-copies of documents.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 3914052)
Think about it - who has better access to genuine car records than the RTO itself? If any car is pulled over, the traffic policeman can enter the registration number in his smartphone app and see all details himself (with a picture of the owner). In an ideal world, the database would have owner information, fitness validity, PUC, insurance details, any outstanding traffic tickets, any police complaints on the car (including theft) etc.

A good news indeed. Infact, I did read about this in the newspaper a couple of days back. And to answer to your query on the policeman having this data, its already being tested by the traffic policemen. I had read in the news a couple of weeks back that the traffic police would first be testing this till the end of February and if the option works out well, it would be rolled out for the commuters. Sorry, but I will have to dig through for the source. Looks like this has been tested successfully now.

Also, its better that the driver also has a copy of all the documents. Very much required. It cannot be just dependent on what the policeman sees in his app. It could well be a stolen car and the driver can produce just a DL and walk away with it without any other documents being produced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by farooq817 (Post 3914127)
Also, its better that the driver also has a copy of all the documents. Very much required. It cannot be just dependent on what the policeman sees in his app. It could well be a stolen car and the driver can produce just a DL and walk away with it without any other documents being produced.

Those are easy to be covered. As long as RTO, Traffic police and Police department work in sync tracking stolen vehicles will be easy.

Registration details of the vehicles are already online in Hyderabad. Challans are also online in Hyderabad. You have vehicle number / driving license as unique ID's. Everything is already in place. It just needs to be mapped properly and consolidated into a single App (which is now the preferred mode and accessible to lot more people).

I have always wondered why it took so long for them to implement this system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 3914052)
Why don't transport departments create an app for the RTO officers instead? Asking car owners to carry 'papers' is an old system.

Precisely! The western countries do have similar systems. The cops who are on hunt of the violators have laptops installed in their cars. Just by inserting the license plate details they can pull all data - registration/ title, validity of the roadworthiness certificates, records associated with the car and car owner. If the car owner is not a driver, they ask for driver's license and with that DL - ID search, you get everything related to driver too. Of course this system works because everything is digitised and most importantly the most necessary systems do talk to each others!

We still have a long way to go, but whatever e-format of papers Telangana is going to accept is good initiative too! At least people with two wheelers don't have to carry papers and regret when it gets wet in rain :p

Quote:

Originally Posted by abirnale (Post 3914361)
We still have a long way to go, but whatever e-format of papers Telangana is going to accept is good initiative too! At least people with two wheelers don't have to carry papers and regret when it gets wet in rain :p

agree:Though I can bet many people who don't have proper documentation would just switch off their phones when they are caught and plead that their phone ran out of battery. It could happen in genuine cases too. No juice in the phone or bad network at a particular spot. Wonder how they will deal with such cases?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanmish (Post 3914382)
agree:Though I can bet many people who don't have proper documentation would just switch off their phones when they are caught and plead that their phone ran out of battery. It could happen in genuine cases too. No juice in the phone or bad network at a particular spot. Wonder how they will deal with such cases?

I am sure that the authorities should also have a system in place to check the authenticity of the documents on their own system (without internet connectivity-Offline) as well. Again, it is the responsibility of the individual to produce the document to the authorities on demand, whether electronic or paper copies. You cannot escape with a naive reason as NO network / battery down etc., It is for convenience and we should use it judicicously. Just my two cents.

This is a good initiative and much more convenient than carrying all documents in paper form all the time. As discussed above, there are sure to be more apps in the pipeline (for the police/ RTO officers) to track such e-documents and verify them when and as necessary. Hope it is done on a pan-India basis.

As for the driver's phone battery running out of juice, the traffic cop's phone is sure to have full battery to check documents online against vehicle registration number .....and register the case.

Excellent move by Telangana State Govt. Atleast this a start and hope they can expand the functionality of this app to service both public as well as authorities (RTO, police, pollution check agents, insurance companies, etc.). Should be a central repository of all vehicle related details for all parties.

Hope more state govts adopt this initiative and embrace the convenience of digital world.

This is a very good initiative from the Government of Telangana and they are definitely leading by an example in this modern digital world.
Also, I completely agree with the practicality of RTO or traffic police having an App on their smartphone which enables them access all the vehicle documents.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanmish (Post 3914382)
Though I can bet many people who don't have proper documentation would just switch off their phones when they are caught and plead that their phone ran out of battery. It could happen in genuine cases too. No juice in the phone or bad network at a particular spot. Wonder how they will deal with such cases?

Those who can't produce the details on time can be given a challan & asked to produce the original in the nearby police station within a day or two. The challan can be cancelled if they visit on time.

Else, such people also can keep an attested copy of the documents. Frankly, all the car in our family carries a set of attested copies and never the original. One copy easily serves 5-6 years as this is hardly used. While I believe an e-copy is the way to move forward, it all depends on how we adapt to such ideas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 3914052)
... If any car is pulled over, the traffic policeman can enter the registration number in his smartphone app and see all details himself (with a picture of the owner). In an ideal world, the database would have owner information, fitness validity, PUC, insurance details, any outstanding traffic tickets, any police complaints on the car (including theft) etc...

I believe the Bangalore traffic police had a variant of this implemented 5 years back. All the traffic violations were entered into an app and receipts printed thru a bluetooth printer. The violations would remain ON for 90 days (?) or so in the system and the fines would go up in case of repeat offenses.


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