The Department of Transport Management has decided not to take applications for driving license tests in view of the rising number of coronavirus cases.

Issuing a notice on Tuesday evening, the department said it is halting the tests until further notice from Wednesday midnight.

Starting 6am Thursday, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur are going into a lockdown, as chief district officers have declared prohibitory orders.

The restrictive measures will be in place for 15 days.

According to Loknath Bhusal, spokesperson for the department, the online application would be halted until further notice however, the work of license printing will be continued once they purchase new smart license cards.

“We have signed a contract to purchase over 1.4 millions cards and once we get them, we will start printing smart licenses immediately,” said Bhusal.

On March 24 last year also the department had halted all its services due to the nationwide lockdown that was imposed to contain the coronavirus spread. The department resumed its service only after nine months on December 29.

But the department was overwhelmed with the number of license seekers

According to officials at the department, over 700,000 service seekers are waiting for trial tests after filling up the forms. Given the huge number of applicants, the trial dates have already been pre-booked for over a year now.

“Besides 700,000 new online applications, we have 500,000 backlogs due to unavailability of cards,” Bhusal told the post.

The service seekers have long been complaining about the delay.

Even before the pandemic, applicants had to wait for more than a year to get their smart driving licenses. But after the resumption of online driving license application forms, they need to wait for over a year just to take the test.

Nirajan Subedi, who filled up an online application four months ago, said after waiting for months he had got the trial date of next week. But due to the pandemic, he is not sure for how long he has to wait for the test

“Even if I pass my driving test, I am sure I would have to wait for another one year to get my smart license,” 22-year-old Subedi told the Post.