KARACHI, Nov 1: Sindh police are at odds with the National Database and Registration Authority over the cost of the driving licence paper which has caused a delay to computerise the issuance of driving licence system.

A high-level meeting at Governor’s House in June this year had decided to computerise the system of issuance of driving licence in collaboration with Nadra.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan while presiding over the meeting had asked the home department to finalise a comprehensive strategy in consultation with the departments concerned as soon as possible.

However, in a follow-up meeting at the Governor’s House held recently, Nadra gave a detailed presentation to the governor about issuance of driving licences and suggested charges of a driving licence at Rs225 besides the driving licence fee for three and five years separately, it is reliably learnt.

Sources close to the meeting said that the police officers objected to the cost of the card of a driving licence saying that the police charged Rs125 for each card.

The officers said that the cost on a card could be lessened. The fee of driving licence was already increased in Karachi and the additional charges of the card would put burden on aspirants.

Giving reasons for increase in the cost, Nadra officials said that a particular RFID number would be allotted to all driving licence holders while traffic officers would be provided PDAs for making identification and entries of RFID and later with its help provide all record of RFID licence chip to central server for compilation as database.

In the first phase, this system would be implemented in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur and later extended to remaining areas of the province. All offices issuing driving licenses would be linked to a joint network, Nadra officials briefed the meeting.

They disclosed that an agreement in this respect was finalised with Punjab government and Nadra had also provided its expertise for issuing driving licences to Bangladesh.

Following this disclosure, the officers of Sindh police requested the officers of Nadra to provide the copies of agreements reached between Bangladesh government and the Punjab government so that they could analyse the pros and cons before finalizing the deal about issuing the driving licences in collaboration with Nadra.

Sources in the police said that the method for getting a driving licence for a common man would almost be the same. An applicant would have to obtain a learning driving licence and after completion of the stipulated time, the applicant could apply for regular driving licence.

The procedure of taking the driving test would be the same but the only difference would be that the data of an applicant would be verified with Nadra’s database and the system meant for issuing driving licences.