Smart cards for Karnataka vehicles

The Karnataka government has embarked on an ambitious project to issue "smart cards" to vehicle owners across the state for putting an end to road tax evasion and prevent fabrication of fake documents. A smart card is like a credit or debit card but can store a lot of data which can be read and updated only by an authorised person.

The state transport department, which has been entrusted with the task of implementing the project, is finalising tender guidelines to seek bids from vendors.

"The tender will be published shortly. By mid 2007, we will be in a position to issue smart cards to owners of all new vehicles rolling out of showrooms," Karnataka Transport Minister N Cheluvarayaswamy told Business Standard here.

Smart cards will be issued to all existing vehicle owners also.

"All RTOs will conduct monthly drives at the district level to collect RC documents and convert the contents into digital format on the smart card. The RC document will be returned to the owner and smart card issued within 30 days. This process will commence by year end and an awareness campaign will be launched shortly," the minister said.

The smart card project is part of a computerisation programme prepared for the transport department. It rests on two legs. Computerised government records will identify all those whose taxes are overdue and the recording of tax paid on smart cards will remove the chance of faking tax receipts. "We are putting in a system which will automatically identify the road tax and permit defaulters on a daily basis,"the minister said.

Our squad will nab such vehicle owners to collect the dues along with the penalty. Once the road tax and permit fee is collected, the details will be updated in the smart card," the minister said.

At present, four Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) "" Bangalore, Tumkur, Belgaum and Mysore "" have been computerised.

"The remaining 48 RTOs will be computerised by this year end. Rs 10 crore has been set aside for this purpose. Particulars of each vehicle such as road tax and goods permit will be computerised and made available online for the staff for regular scrutiny," he said.

Karnataka can be the first in this regard as Andhra Pradesh had initiated a similar project but it did not take off.

The smart card will include technical details of the vehicle such as its year of manufacture, model, engine number, chassis number, state permit, road tax payment, insurance payment, fitness certificate and registration details.

At present, barring insurance payment, rest of the details are handwritten in the registration card (RC) issued to the vehicle owner by the transport department at the time of vehicle delivery. Where computerisation has taken place, the RC is printed by a computer.

"The entire document, including insurance policy, could run into more than 50 pages, in case of goods transport vehicles," the minister pointed out.

He contended that a fake RC document cannot be created once smart cards take over as these are tamper proof. "We will do away with the RC document once the smart card is in place. The details on a smart card will be accessible only by the transport department since it carries a security code," Cheluvarayaswamy said.