The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has been facilitating computerisation of more than 1100 Road Transport Offices (RTOs) all over India in the last few years. With wide variations in state policies and the manual-system-based procedures being followed across the country, it had become necessary to define a uniform standard for these documents on a pan-India level to ensure interoperability, correctness and timely availability of information.

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) worked along with other agencies which included academia and industry players, to evolve as a completely implementable Smart Card Operating Systems Standards (SCOSTA) – an operating system for transport application. The SCOSTA committee setup for this purpose had recommended a uniform standardised software across the country.

The Ministry thus entrusted National Informatics Centre (NIC) with the task of standardising and deploying two softwares – VAHAN for Vehicle Registration and SARATHI for Driving Licences and compilation of data with respect to Vehicle Registration and Driving Licences of all the states in State and National Registers. The applications VAHAN and SARATHI were conceptualised to capture the functionalities as mandated by Central Motor Vehicle Act, 1988, as well as State Motor Vehicle rules with customisation in the core product to suit the requirements of 36 States and UTs. In the process, NIC further developed the mParivahan app that can be used on the mobile phones by the vehicle owners to easily access important documents like driving licence, vehicle registration certificate, together with insurance details and PUC validity among other things.

Objectives of mParivahan
To automate all vehicle registration and driving licence related activities under Transport Authorities of India, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has introduced the smart card technology to handle issues like inter-state transport vehicle movement and created state and national level registers of vehicles and driving licence information.

The softwares VAHAN and SARATHI together with the mParivahan app had facilitated instant access of all vehicle and driving licence related information to all police and government departments across the country. The latest initiative has centralised both these applications for ensuring higher transparency, security and reliability of operations through a countrywide unified database and provision of a highly citizen and trade centric digital environment.

The new application developed would provide for a multi-user environment wherein the end citizens may be empowered to perform most of the RTO related transactions including payments, either from the comfort of home or using authorised third party service providers in their vicinity. This will also help, to a large extent, in removing the hassles faced by the motorists currently in visiting RTOs for transactions, minimising the extensive ground level paperwork and reducing the possibility of middlemen exploitation.

The mParivahan app
The mParivahan is a mobile based application developed by NIC under the Ministry of Road & Surface Transport, Government of India. It provides transport service access to citizens through a mobile based application. This app empowers the citizen with instant access to various information, services and utilities related to the Transport Sector.
The main objective is to bring convenience to citizens and transparency in the system. It facilitates easy access to important information as follows:

• Driving Licence
• Vehicle Registration details
• Road Tax validity
• Motor Insurance validity
• Pollution Under Control (PUC) Certificate validity

The app also has a feature to create virtual Registration Certificate (RC) and Driving Licence (DL) that are considered as authentic proofs for the vehicle details and the driver respectively.

 

Benefits to Motorists
The mParivahan app is designed to be a single repository for all vehicles data registered under all the RTOs in India. Importantly, as one of the most convenient features of the mParivahan app, this being an integrated system and not merely an application, the vehicle information or data has to be downloaded or sourced from the central government database of the National Registry of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, and cannot be scanned and uploaded by motorists themselves. This feature helps to avoid any scope of forgery or error through manual data entry by a motorist. The sourcing of data from the government database ensures authenticity and thereby reliability of the data. This benefits both the motorists as well as the enforcement agencies. With the display of mParivahan details on a mobile phone, the motorists will not be required to carry any of the documents inside the car or produce them physically.

The enforcing authorities, on the other hand, will not be required to physically handle or check any of the car documents of a motorist and at the same time their offices need not maintain any inventory or record.

Information available under the virtual Driving Licence (DL) of the app

• Driving licence holder name
• Parent / Spouse name
• Date of birth
• Blood group
• Vehicle class
• DL issue date
• DL validity
• Registering authority & code

Information available under the virtual Registration Certificate (RC) of the app

• Owner name
• Registration date
• Registering authority
• Chassis number
• Engine number
• Car manufacturer
• Model name
• Class of vehicle
• Date of registration
• Registration validity
• Fuel type
• Seating capacity
• Colour
• Financier
• Insurance details & validity
• Fitness validity
• Road tax validity
• PUC details & validity
• Registering authority

Main Features of the app
mParivahan has multiple utilities for motorists:

Comprehensive Dashboard

• The search engine can find out details of any RC & DL registered in India.
• Any RC and DL may be viewed.
• A motorist may virtually create an RC & DL sourced from the government database.
• A traffic challan raised against any vehicle by any police authority in India, may be viewed by the motorists, including its fine payment status.
• Payment of road tax facility through the app is underway.

Creation of Emergency Profile

• Notifications to the emergency numbers saved by a motorist in the app, by pressing a button is also possible.
• Ambulance may be called by tapping a button in the app under emergency situations.

Language Option
The app may be operated both in English and Hindi languages as per the convenience of the motorist.

Notifications

• The app has provision to view all motor vehicle related government notifications.

Value Added Services
The following information is also available in the mParivahan app 

• Mock test guidelines for DL
• Nearest PUC Centre to the motorist
• Nearest RTO to the motorist
• All DL related information and guidelines
• All RC related information and guidelines
• Details of any parked, lost or accidentally damaged vehicle may be viewed through the app.
• Data of any used vehicle may be verified before purchasing through the app.
• The vehicle details may be shared with others using a QR code (encrypted format) to ensure security.

DigiLocker app for storing data
The DigiLocker is also an online service provided by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Government of India under its Digital India initiative.

DigiLocker provides an account in digital cloud to every Aadhaar card holder to preserve and access important documents or certificates such as PAN, AADHAR, Driving Licence or Vehicle Registration in digital format sourced from the original issuers of these certificates.
It provides 1GB storage space to each account to upload scanned copies of legacy documents or even academic certificates and mark sheets.

However, motorists may note that the Digilocker app facilitates storing and accessing of DL and RC only. This means that the original documents of insurance, PUC, road tax etc., will not be available under a Digilocker app, and thus, they have to be physically carried along with the app inside a car while travelling.

Legal validity of DigiLocker and mParivahan apps

• The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which aims to enforce stricter penalties for road traffic violations, allows citizens to produce transport-related documents such as registration, insurance, fitness and permit, driving licence, pollution check certificate in electronic form are stored in DigiLocker or mParivahan apps.
• Please note that digital documents do not refer to scanned copies or photographed images of car documents.
• As the information of the Certificate of Registration (RC) and Driving Licence (DL) generated in the mParivahan app is issued by the National Registry of Ministry of Road Transport & Highways under Government of India, the digital documents stored in DigiLocker / mParivahan mobile app are legally valid and are supposed to be accepted by traffic authorities under the amended Motor Vehicles Act all over India.
• The document is valid as per the IT Act 2000 when used electronically. As per Section 4 of the IT Act 2000, if any information is required in writing, typewritten or printed form, then such a requirement shall be deemed to have been satisfied if it is made available in an electronic form or is accessible so as to be usable for a subsequent reference.

Installation and Operation
Available on both Android and iOS platforms, both the mParivahan and Digilocker apps are easy to set up and use.
Interestingly, the mParivahan app allows any user to check the basic details of any vehicle just by entering the vehicle registration number, without formally registering on the app.
The mParivahan can be downloaded from Google Play Store on any Windows-based Android smartphone and from iStore on iPhones as follows:

• Go to Google Play Store on your smartphone
• Search for mParivahan App
• Click Download
• Once downloaded, open and start using the app after verifying your mobile number for the first time.
• Go to RC dashboard and search for your vehicle details with the vehicle registration number.
• Once the information populates on the app dash board, click on the ‘Create Virtual RC’ button and have your full RC details (to authenticate the original owner, one needs to enter the last 4 digits of your car’s Chassis Number and Engine Number).
• Similarly, you can go to the DL dashboard and create your virtual DL.
• Use the Menu at the top to explore the whole list of features in the app.

Howerever, one key feature which is missing in the app is the convenience of receiving challan notifications or paying them right through the app. It would have been a nice value addition considering the rate at which challans are reportedly being issued by the authorities.

Status of mParivahan app in West Bengal
Despite the Central Government notifications, the validity and/or applicability of mParivahan app or any other motor vehicle document in digital form is uncertain in the state of West Bengal, as on 1 October 2020. The state government has not yet announced its acceptance or denial in clear term, and hence the present status is doubtful. However, it is anticipated that within a short while, the West Bengal government will declare its acceptability, similar to other states.

Overall, the mParivahan app is a handy companion on your smartphone to avail a hassle-free commute in your vehicle in the 21st century.