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How I easily applied for driving licence renewal myself & saved Rs 1500

The agents at my local regional transport office were charging a hefty amount for the DL renewal service

BHPian swiftnfurious recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

How to renew a Kerala License Online

So, my license was expiring on Jun 02, 2022, and since I am based in Chennai, wanted to pursue the online process.

Also, a few years back, I wanted to add the commercial license too and ended up paying 2000/- to a driving school that didn't do anything other than giving a form to fill up. Till date, I don't know why did I pay that hefty amount when I had to fill up the form myself, get the medical report done myself, submit the form myself and also collect the new appended license myself after taking a token in the morning and coming back in the afternoon to collect the card.

I was very sure I don't want to pay these useless guys if I have to do all the work myself and I understood they were charging 2000/- for DL renewal service as well. I posted on this very thread and hardly any good pointers, so I thought I'll create a report to help someone who wants to pursue and save some money. Please note that this post will issue details only for the Kerala licenses and the process may vary a little for other RTOs.

Verdict: It's so, so easy!

Documents required

Some websites mention that only those who are above 40 need a vision test report but no, everyone needs a vision report done irrespective of the age.

  • Vision test report / Medical report (Form 1A) - Self-attested
  • Photograph scan
  • Signature scan
  • Self-attested license copy
  • Self-attested address copy (if you need a change in address)

There are a few centres that'll do the vision test report and you can get the medical report from some government doctors (Ask around and you'll be guided as to who'll do it).

Step 1: Go to the Parivahan website and Select "Apply for DL Renewal"

Step 2: Fill up all the relevant details (you need not complete all the steps at once. Once you initiate the process, the form saves and gives you an application number, which you can use to retrieve the next time you want to fill up other details)

[Good thing - you get an SMS with the application number and save it for future references]

Step 3: Upload all scanned copies of documents; ensure that the size is under the guidelines (you can use online tools to compress the images / re-size)

Step 4: Make the payment. Since I had to make changes to my address, I had to pay additional 200/- + taxes (My total expense was 775/- for DL related charges + 6/- for CC charges)

Step 5: Submit the form. Now, your part is done. Wait for RTO to process the form - you'll get updates as SMS.

Challenges faced

I struggled with the photo & signature upload and almost spent a day trying to understand what was wrong. A friend helped with the specifications and though it was right, the images didn't load after uploading the pics. Finally did a fresh image + signature and used an online tool to get the pics in the desired specification and tried again - Voila: done!

Finished the payment at 7.15 PM or so on 01 Jun (Wednesday), the process kick-started (at RTO) on 02 Jun (Thursday) at 11 AM, and all processes were completed by 4 PM; you regularly get SMS notifications as stages progress.

By 6 PM, I see my details are updated on the Parivahan website and mParivahan app - Am so happy that I got this done by bypassing the middle agents and saved close to 1500/- in the process.

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