Nepal to shift to smart driving licences

Kathmandu, June 26 (SURYAA) Nepal is moving forward to replace around two million paper-based driving licences with smart driving licences within a year, an official said.

Roop Narayan Bhattarai, Director General of Nepal's Department of Transport Management (DoTM), said on Sunday that they have plans to introduce smart driving licences throughout the country within a year, Xinhua news agency reported.

A smart licence enables the government authority to end duplication of paper licences and keep electronic records of vehicles and vehicle owners. 

Once the card is scanned, cardholder's biometric data, including traffic violations, will be displayed automatically. This will help control multiple traffic rules violators.

The DoTM has already distributed around 200,000 smart driving licences in Bagmati zone. The Asian Development Bank has been assisting Nepal's drive towards digitalisation of the driving licences, considering the large number of road accidents in the country.

During the first 11 months of the current 2016-17 fiscal year, a total of 5,051 road accidents took place in Nepal, killing 168 people, according to the record of Nepal's Traffic Police.