Smart cards for vehicle owners in Karnataka

The Karnataka government has embarked on an ambitious project to issue 'smart cards' to vehicle owners across the state to put 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 the guidelines for tenders 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 the 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 the year-end and an awareness campaign will be launched shortly," the minister said.

The smart card project is part of the 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. 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 on 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 the end of the year for the purpose of which Rs 10 crore has been set aside. The 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.

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 are introduced 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.