Great news! Physical Driving Licenses no longer mandatory: All about Digital DL
It’s finally official, you no longer are required by law to carry a physical copy of your driving license to drive a car in India. The new law also allows vehicles owners to skip carrying the Registration certificate, with the Government officially amending the rule to allow citizens to carry an electronic copy of these two critical document. The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has said the new provision has been amended under section 139 of the Central Motor Vehicles Act of 1989, so as to allow for digital copies of the driving license and registration certificate. The catch is, a simple scan copy won’t work, road-users interested in making the switch to the digital format using applications like the Central governments’ Digi-Locker (available for both, Android and iOS)
The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said the new provision has been amended under Section 139 of Central Motor Vehicles Act, 1989, allowing vehicle owners across the country to use electronic versions of their driving licence and registration certificate on Digilocker, the digital locker application by the central government to store the official application.
Now that the new law is in place, officially, Vehicle owners no longer have to worry about arguing with Police about the validity of E-Documents, citizens can legally provide the digital copy prima facie, although the notification also stipulates that documents such as registration, insurance, fitness and permit, the driving licence, certificate for pollution under check and any other relevant documents can be produced either digitally or physically to any police officer in uniform or any other officer authorized by the state government in this behalf. In fact, more than the populace this notification is aimed at notifying officers who might ask citizens to produce the documents for verification. To ensure clarity, the notification said, to ensure compliance of the amendments made to rule 139 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 by officers so as to avoid the inconvenience of citizen looking to make this change.
How To Use DigiLocker: Guide To Upload Driving License, Vehicle’s RC And More With Images!
Earlier this year, the government had issued a draft notification that was met with positivity by road users and commuters, who in the past, could have been penalised for not carrying physical copies of the vehicles. To upload the documents, one will need to download the Digilocker app from the app store and then follow the steps to upload your documents. For a detailed How to, check out our story linked above!
