The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) has said Malika Incorporated would start printing smart driving licence from this week.

These would be different from the cards printed by the department in collaboration with Madras Security Printers (MSP). The company from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has been providing this service to Nepal Government since the launch of the card in 2105.

The smart driving license printed by Malika would be similar to an ATM card that easy to print, compared to the cards printed by the government currently.

DoTM Spokesperson Gokarna Upadhayay said Malika is conducting production tests since a couple of days.

“Officials of the company have informed the department that they will begin production of the driving licence cards within a couple of days,” he said.

The Council of Ministers had decided to allow the department to sign a private company to print the smart driving licence card to get rid of the mounting backlog.

The DoTM has been unable to provide licence to around 600,000 applicants. According to Upadhayay, the department has not been able to distribute cards to applicants, including those eligible since November 2017.

The department has given the company 45-day deadline to print 500,000 cards. Malika will be using 20 printing machines to complete the task. “We will continue printing cards in collaboration with Madras Security Printers. This means the driving licence cards would be printed in two different ways to mitigate the huge shortfall in the distribution mechanism,” Upadhayay said.

Applicants who had completed the process to obtain driving licence in 2017 would receive cards printed by MSP while Malika would print cards registered in the government system post January 2018.  

Meanwhile, the department has also announced a tender for procuring a mass printer that can print as many as 450 smart driving license cards in an hour. The DoTM hopes to bring such a printer in the next two-months.   

The DoTM had started distributing smart driving licence cards in Bagmati zone from December 2015. Asian Development Bank funded the project with a grant of $25 million.

Department officials blamed multiple agencies, involved since the launch of smart cards, for the failure to print and distribute the cards as scheduled.

The demand for cards was based on the probable number of applications for new driving licences. However, officials missed licence renewals category that caused this mess, one of the officials at the department told the Post.