Re: Sarathi Driving Licence services completely online | How to guide I had a strange experience with getting my address changed and adding a new category on an existing license.
I have a 2008 Pune (MH12) issued license. Since those were pre-Aadhar days, I used just my first name and last name by omitting the middle name. After today's experience, I learnt the lesson to stay with my full name.
I used online request to change address and adding middle name. The fun started when I landed in Mumbai West RTO. Apparently, I needed gazette (a paper AD) showing change in name. Since, I don't speak the local language, I found a decent agent and went to couple of officers inside the RTO to understand if a gazette is actually required, just to add a middle name. Surprisingly, all confirmed that there is no other way. After deciding that a gazette is inevitable, I tried modifying the existing application to remove the name change request and just go ahead with address change. The character length in the fields (first, middle and last names) don't have enough inputs allowed to get my name inserted - to match with Aadhar/passport names. After dilly-dallying for a while, its concluded that even a gazette couldn't solve the issue as the name pattern will be an issue. This could also potentially impact International driving permit for those countries, which actually need it.
Finally - the agent, an inside officer and myself agreed to go for a completely new license as it will kill 3 birds with one shot - name aligned as per Aadhar/passport, new address and new categories added. We started and the application went through seamlessly and I was out in 30mins flat with a LL in my hand. The wait now starts for me to convert this LL to permanent license, which I understood will be with me in ~45 days.
Now, I have 2 questions needing help from the forum here
1. In the above process, did I miss anything or was there any other way I could have avoided new application and accomplish everything on the existing license?
2. When I get the new license, what should I do with the existing license as I understood that possessing 2 licenses is not exactly legal. |