ISLAMABAD: Traffic may be getting worse in the city but the good news is that the days of the ‘Registration Book’ of motor vehicles are numbered.

Most probably, before May, a chip-based Smart Card will replace the ubiquitous book.

It will have all the details about the vehicle, its owner and security features which make tempering impossible.

It will check the rampant fake vehicle registration papers and number plates.

Dawn has learned that the Excise and Taxation Department of the Islamabad administration has prepared a database of over 700,000 vehicles registered with it and a trial period of two months is planned before formally launching the multi-security chip-based vehicle registration system.

Tough the idea of digitising the vehicle registration system was being discussed for many years as a tool to check fraud and misuse of vehicles in crime and terror attacks, Deputy Commissioner Mujhaid Shardil, who is also Director General Excise, and the Director Excise and Taxation Noman Yousaf pushed for its introduction.

Work on the system started after the city administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) early this year.

“News about our initiative caught the attention of the law enforcement agencies of other security-rocked areas, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa authorities formally wrote to us for inquiries and help,” officials of Islamabad’s Motor Registration Authority said.

“They wrote that they had asked the KP government for paper with security features for the registration books but thought why not go for our innovative step,” he said.

However, for running the system, the province’s excise and taxation department requires an online, integrated, secured and tested database which it currently does not have.

“The department better take up the matter with Nadra or PRAL, the government entities which have the requisite capacity, expertise and human resource in the areas of IT and database,” suggested the Islamabad officials.

A team of the KP Excise and Taxation Department is expected in Islamabad to discuss “a concrete proposal”.

Published in Dawn February 18th , 2015

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