Advertisment

INFRASTRUCTURE: E-transport Comes to Kerala

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

Vehicle riders in Kerala will soon be carrying their driving licences as

smart cards while registration and permits will go more hi-tech with the

introduction of smart optical cards. The state's motor vehicles' department will

float tenders for identifying a private sector firm for implementing the smart

card project on a Boot build-own-operate-and-transfer (Boot) basis for a period

of five years. The option of extending this period to 10 years has also been

kept open by the administration.

Advertisment

Kerala will be the sixth state after Chandigarh, Gujarat, Delhi Maharashtra

and Uttar Pradesh to initiate induction of information technology in the road

transport sector, KP Somarajan, state transport commissioner, said.

The driving licences are to be issued as credit card-sized plastic cards with

a microprocessor capable of storing information in electronic form with

controlling access and facility for modification of information.

A smart card reader would be required to access information from the card,

which will have to be supplied in sufficient quantities by the private company

entering into the BOOT agreement with the government.

Advertisment

Smart cards will have the capacity to story 1 kB of data, which requires only

limited information to be stored. On the other hand, the certificates of

registration for all kinds of vehicles and permits will require more information

to be stored. Therefore, it will be issued in smart optical card format with an

embedded computer chip of 4 kB capacity and an optical strip of 1.5 kB capacity.

At present, the Motor Vehicles Department is charging Rs 150 for issual of

driving licences and Rs 300-600 for certificates of registration for transport

vehicles. The cost of issual of smart cards and smart optical cards can well be

contained with in this limit with the kind of technology presently available,

Somarajan said.

"Therefore, the induction of smart cards need not impose additional

financial burden on the vehicle user or owner," Somarajan added.

Advertisment

In the BOOT system, all the equipments, services and infrastructure will have

to be provided by the successful private bidder and the system will be

transferred to the government after the expiry of the agreement. The private

firm would charge the government for the smart card depending upon the cost of

operations, expected profit margin and period of operation. The state motor

vehicles department had earlier decided to allot the project on a BOOT basis, as

government is not in a position to raise funds on its own for undertaking the

project.

The Kerala government has also decided to computerize the backend operations

of the motor vehicles department, for which the software developed by National

Informatics Center (NIC) and field tested for the past two years would be

utilized free of charge.

The greatest benefits of smart cards are convenience, portability,

durability, security and ability to check forgery. Since the microchip on a

smart card is embedded in the card, tampering with the card without destroying

it is nearly impossible.

The decision to induct IT in road transport sector was taken at the 29th

meeting of the Transport Development Council held in June 2000 in New Delhi. The

meeting was convened by union minister for surface transport and attended by

state transport ministers, transport secretaries, and transport commissioners of

states and union territories. Subsequently, Chandigarh and Gujarat have already

issued licenses on smart cards while Delhi government and Maharashtra government

have floated tenders for identifying private companies for implementing smart

card projects on a BOO or BOOT basis.

Aswathy Sreekumar



Cyber News Service, Chennai

Advertisment