There is a delay in printing the smart driving license at the secure printing center inaugurated at the IT Park in the district last October. The printing process has been delayed due to the failure to receive the necessary 'data' from the Department of Transport Management in time at the secure printing center that came into operation for printing the license, said Devraj Dhungana, executive director of the center.

Since the department's main 'software' and 'middleware' systems are not fully operational, the necessary details for printing licenses have to be collected 'manually'. Dhungana said that due to the lack of 'bulk data' facilities, thousands of licenses could not be printed at once and only three to four hundred 'data' could be pulled per day.

On November 21, Minister for Communications and Information Technology Jagadish Kharel had informally inaugurated the license printing facility at the Security Printing Center. At that time, the center was said to print 500 licenses per day, but the number has not been achieved. "Although the initial plan was to print 500 licenses daily, the department is currently providing data only twice a week," said Dhungana. "Sometimes five to seven hundred or sometimes up to 1,000 data comes at a time, and it has to be printed and distributed based on the data received."

Since the inauguration, the center has received 'data' for about 7,000 licenses so far, of which about 6,000 have been printed and distributed. The remaining 'data' is also being prepared to be printed and distributed within two days. The printing company has stated that they are only a service provider and that the Department of Transport Management is solely responsible for providing 'data', operating the system, and maintaining the details of service recipients. Dhungana said that the printing process is expected to accelerate once the software system is fully operational from the department.

The center and the department had agreed to print 1.2 million 'licenses', including essential ones, in the first phase. Dhungana said that the goal is to fully implement the printing system within six months if the current technical problems are resolved.

The department has so far sent about 8,000 ‘data’ to the center and 6,500 licenses have been printed by the center, said Keshav Khatiwada, senior computer engineer at the Department of Transport. Before the Gen-G movement, an average of 1,800 to 500 applications were received for ‘licenses’ per day. But now, 200 to 250 emergency application forms are being received. He said that now, 800 to 1,200 ‘data’ are being sent to the center per week. ‘Currently, we are printing licenses for emergency purposes. We will have to send block data to print 1.2 million licenses. For that, the department is developing a ‘middleware personalization software’ system.’