Contract to company ends, work on issuing driving licences hit

The process of making new driving licences and printing these has come to a stop for nearly a month at the local Regional Transport Office (RTO). It has become a bone of contention for officials of the department besides resulting in harassment to hundreds of people daily. Hera Singh Kandianwala and Baldev Singh Pandori, social workers, informed here today that with the work of making new driving licences and printing having stopped, more than 2,000 people who appeared for test at the driving track in the Regional Transport Office, are still waiting for their licences.

Gurdev Singh, Junior Assistant at RTO, said the contract awarded to the company concerned had expired on December 31. The contract has not been renewed or awarded to any other company. As a result, the work had stopped.

The social activists said that people who had applied for new driving licences were facing legal problems. They said that other related works too were getting affected as the payment of loan by people who had purchased vehicles on its basis was not being entered in the official record. Social workers Heera Singh Kandianwala and Baldev Singh Pandori demanded that the state government must sort out the problems to restore normal working.

People who wanted to get a new driving licence after depositing the due fees at the proper centre and appearing for test at the driving track had to return home without getting their work done.