Two months after the Department of Transport Management building was damaged by arson, applications for new licenses have been opened. The service was suspended after the protest on 24 Bhadra. According to the department, the service has been started from two Transport Management offices in the valley, Sanobharyang and Radheradhe in Bhaktapur, on Sunday. Similarly, the service has also started from the Chabahil and Ekantakuna offices from Monday, said Keshav Khatiwada, director of the department.

‘Applications, written and trial exams for new licensees have already started from some offices in the valley,’ Khatiwada said, ‘renewal services for all new and old licenses that have expired have already started.’ According to him, all these services are also being started from transport management offices outside the valley from Tuesday. ‘License-related services have already started from 38 out of 42 transport management offices across the country,’ Khatiwada said, ‘We will gradually start the service from offices outside the valley for new licenses.’

The service has not been started from four out of 42 transport management offices in Chaurjahari, Surkhet, Pokhara and Hetauda in Rukum. ‘The buildings of these four transport offices are being prepared,’ Khatiwada said, ‘so it may take a few more days to start the service.’ He said that the time for applying for the application will be determined only after the system is loaded after looking at the number of people applying for the new license for a few days. ‘We will start the service across the country and see the number of applicants for a few days,’ he said. ‘If there is a lot of load, we will determine the time for applying after looking at the load.’ He said that the system will slow down when there is a lot of load, so a decision will be made only after looking at that.

Before and after, 6 to 7 thousand service recipients from all seven provinces used to apply for new licenses on a normal day. Accordingly, 4 to 5 thousand new licenses were passed in the trial. This service is being provided from 42 transport management offices across the country. Similarly, driving licenses have been available on the Nagarik app since 18 Kartik. Driving licenses were removed from the Nagarik app after the department’s data center was damaged by arson. Currently, there are more than 2.5 million licenses left to be printed. Of these, 1.2 million licenses have been printed by the Security Printing Center.

The center will print 1.2 million licenses and provide them to the department in 6 months. "The department will take applications for those who need licenses immediately, including those going for foreign employment," Khatiwada said. "We will send it to the printing center and print it." Therefore, he said, the center will print 1.2 million licenses by combining the number of licenses that need licenses immediately and the number of old licenses that are still to be printed. For this, an agreement was signed between the Department of Transport Management and the Security Printing Center on October 13.

The department still has 1.3 million licenses to print. The department plans to manage the necessary budget for that later and let the center print it. The department stopped printing after the machine in the department was destroyed in a fire. The printing center will print the licenses that are needed immediately until the department purchases a machine to print licenses. It is estimated that 18,000 of the 22,000 licenses that were printed in the department to be sent to various transport management offices were burned in the arson. Of these, only three thousand licenses have been found safe. Director Khatiwada said that work is underway to see how many licenses were printed and left over after the system was in place.