The printing of 1.2 million of the 2.5 million driver's licenses that have been pending for a long time is set to begin. For this, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Department of Transport Management and the Security Printing Center on Thursday. According to this, the printing center will print 1.2 million licenses and provide them to the department within 6 months.

Director General of the department Rajiv Pokharel and Executive Director of the Security Printing Center Devraj Dhungana jointly signed the memorandum of understanding. Keshav Khatiwada, Director of the Department of Transport Management, said that in the first phase, 1.2 million licenses will be printed and provided to the service recipients as per the available budget. 

‘Since joining the department, I have been working to solve the problem of licenses,’ Khatiwada said, ‘Accordingly, half of the licenses will be printed and distributed within 6 months, and we will manage the budget for the remaining licenses and proceed with the printing process soon.’ He said that the printing center will start printing within a few days after the department’s system is launched.

Executive Director of the Security Printing Center Dhungana said that the work is being started by coordinating between the two bodies as per the provision of printing licenses in the Security Printing Act. ‘We were coordinating with the Department of Transport Management for this, a memorandum of understanding was signed last Jestha to proceed with printing from this center,’ he said, ‘The department’s data center and the entire system were damaged in the fire, we will start printing within a week of the license data being available.’

Dhungana says that since the machines are high-speed, the licenses will be printed and provided to the department within the specified time. ‘We will print the licenses, for this, the department will provide the license data,’ he said, ‘After printing, we delete all the data, which will later remain in the department’s system.’

The printing center will print and provide licenses to those who need them urgently, including those going for foreign employment. For this, as before, those who need licenses urgently will have to apply to the department. They will be printed and provided accordingly. The department had been printing and providing about 500 such licenses daily. The department’s services have been disrupted since the fire on 24 Bhadra. The fire has destroyed the department's building, and the server has been destroyed.

'We will print and distribute all the old licenses from the printing center,' said the department's director, Khatiwada. 'After that, this work will be done from the provincial office.' According to him, the license printing machine in the department has burned down. It is estimated that 18,000 licenses out of the 22,000 that were printed in the department to be sent to various transportation management offices were burned down in the arson. Of these, only three thousand licenses have been found safe.

Although about 600,000 cards brought for printing licenses were found safe, it has not been possible to check whether the cards can print licenses or not due to the lack of a printer. Director Khatiwada says that it is not possible to know exactly how many licenses were printed until the department's system was operational.

Khatiwada said that once the system came into operation, there will be accurate information about how many licenses were printed in the department. He says that the damage can be determined accordingly after they are displayed in the system.