Service recipients who have been paying revenue for driving licenses for years have received great relief. They have been freed from the problem of having to carry receipts for revenue payments. Service recipients were disappointed when licenses from 2022 onwards were not printed. The work of printing licenses was completed in 8 and a half months after the agreement was reached in coordination between the two government agencies. In this, agreements were made 3 times between the Department of Transport Management and the Security Printing Center.

The first phase of the agreement was signed on 8 Jestha 2082. At that time, the agreement was that both the agencies would complete the preparations and proceed with the printing work within 6 months. The department planned to prepare the data to be printed and the Security Printing Center to prepare the machines, manpower, and necessary raw materials. The work was progressing accordingly, but during the Gen-G movement on 23 and 24 Bhadra, the office was completely damaged by arson. Some licenses were burned. The server was damaged and stopped. The department had brought the service that was stopped by the Gen-G movement into operation from 10 Kartik.

Accordingly, on 12 Kartik, an agreement was reached between the department and the center to print 1.2 million licenses by 12 Baisakh 083. Was the license printing machine ready before the agreement? To this question, Devraj Dhungana, Executive Director of the Security Printing Center, says - We made an agreement to print licenses only after repairing the machine that had been lying idle for 3 years. Due to the lawsuit, the machine could not be operated for 3 years because the organization was without an office manager. Dhungana says that there was no technical manpower either.

What has the center done in the meantime? Dhungana reveals the list - We called in technicians from HP Indico Security Press and had them make the printing machine, and the card design was done by a technical team from Hungary and Austria. Which work was done in Asoj 082. The center said that it had initially printed a sample license to see if it was possible to print the license according to the available machines and technology. The sample was printed and given to the Department of Transport Management. ‘The department agreed to the printed sample license,’ he said, ‘In the meantime, we took the card to the Kathmandu University lab and tested it, and the test was successful.’

Then, the center’s director Dhungana said that an agreement had been reached between the two bodies to print QR-based cards. An agreement was reached on 12 Kartik and the printing of licenses started from 21 Kartik. ‘We procured the necessary raw materials for printing the licenses through the procurement process, and all the work was done within the scope of the Procurement Act and regulations,’ he told an old story about printing the licenses, ‘We got the necessary materials from the Food Management and Trade Company within 15 days, and the work was done quickly because one public body can purchase them directly from another public body.’

He has experience of printing up to 40,000 licenses starting from 500 per day after all the raw materials arrived. The press for printing the licenses is in Panauti, Kavrepalanchok. The first agreement was to print 1.2 million licenses. The license center printed them on April 12 and submitted them to the department. Out of the 1.2 million licenses printed, 1.1 million 31,075 licenses were backlogged, 37,698 were urgent, and 31,227 were licenses that could be printed after paying revenue within 24 hours. In the first lot, 68,925 licenses were not printed because the backlog was less than a year.

After printing the first lot of licenses, an agreement was reached between the department and the center on April 4, 2083 to print 1.7 million licenses in the second lot. As per the agreement to be printed by Ashar 32, the center has already printed the licenses and given them to the department. According to the center, out of the 1.7 million in the backlog, 1286,423 are licenses printed within 24 hours of revenue payment and 4,959 are urgently printed. Of which 413,577 licenses were not printed.

According to sources in the Department of Transport Management, 377,583 are licenses with a validity period of less than one year. Which will be printed only after the licenses are renewed. Of the 174,919 licenses in the first and second lots, some were suspiciously issued by the department a few years ago and are under investigation by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, and some were burned and lost during the Gen-G movement, the department source said. The department said that the concerned province will decide what to do in the case of lost and burned ones.

Earlier, the license received by the service recipient had a total of 18 features. Which included chips. But now the license received by the service recipient has 39 features. The Security Printing Center has added features such as intelligent QR, readable zone, visible to the naked eye, visible with the help of equipment, visible only from the lab.

Two QRs are placed on the front and back of the printed license, in which the QR center and the service recipient and the traffic police can scan the front part. The new license has 23 features on the front and 16 features on the back. Devraj Dhungana, Executive Director of the Security Printing Center, claims that the license currently printed is strong in terms of security.

The Security Printing Center has informed that so far, 27 lakh 34 thousand 35 licenses printed with backlog, essential and daily revenue payments have been given to the department. What has the Department of Transport Management done to print backlog licenses? Keshav Khatiwada, director of the department, says, ‘When I took over the responsibility of the department in Baisakh 082, 22 lakh licenses were backlogged, but only 500 licenses were printed daily from the machine in the department at that time. We have been continuously coordinating and discussing with the Security Printing Center how to print backlog licenses.’ At that time, the demand for licenses was 3,000 to 4,000 daily.

‘When the first agreement was made with the center to print licenses, the backlog had reached 2.7 million licenses, and the second agreement reached 2.9 million,’ he said, ‘The number of those who renew and pass new trials is increasing every month, and the number is increasing accordingly.’ He said that the work was completed quickly because they worked day and night to collect data and send it to the center.

There are 42 transport management offices across the country. The department sends the printed licenses to those offices through the postal service department. In this way, the service recipients do not receive the licenses as soon as they reach the concerned office. Due to the slow distribution system, the service recipients do not receive the licenses after a long time and are forced to wait in line for hours. Service recipients complain that the concerned transport management offices are not even able to provide the printed licenses on time.

‘From Friday, the service for paying revenue online has been started for those who have passed the trial and passed the new trial,’ said Dhungana, director of the center. ‘The department has arranged for the data of those who have passed the trial and paid revenue to come from all 42 transport offices, and it is ready to be printed and submitted within 24 hours.’ He said that the licenses will be sent through the department for some time and gradually the center will send it to the Postal Service Department after sitting with the department and provincial ministries.