30% driving licences in India are bogus: Transport Minister

The Union Road Transport Minister, Mr. Nitin Gadkari, has claimed that 30% of the driving licences issued in the country are bogus. This information was revealed during the minister's address at the Smart India Hackathon 2017.

In order to eliminate this major share of bogus licences, the government recently made it mandatory for applicants to enter their Aadhaar card details while filing for a new licence or renewing their existing licence. Since the Aadhaar card has a unique ID for each individual, it will become difficult for people to get multiple licences in different RTOs.

The government has also set up a centralized database of licences issued in the country, which can be accessed by every RTO. Using this database, if details of a new applicant are found to be matching an existing issued licence from another RTO, the new licence application will be suspended. Additionally, the government has further made it mandatory for RTOs to issue a licence within 3 days of an individual clearing the driving test. The union minister believes that this will aid transparency and curb corruption at the grass root level, thus limiting cases of bogus driving licences.

Source: Money Control