Kathmandu, January 15
The Department of Transport Management has decided to halt the printing of smart driving licences after the contracted firm, Malika Incorporated, failed to meet the required quality standard.
This decision is certain to worsen the crisis of the Department as it has more than 400,000 pending applicants waiting for the licence.
The contracted company printed around 400,000 licences so far, but it failed to meet the standard, according to the Department’s Director General Lawanya Dhakal.
Now, the Department will print the licences on its own, he adds.
“We are yet to decide whether the same company will be allowed to print licences or cancel the contract,” he says, “We will take appropriate decisions after calculating the numbers of the cards we have printed and that we are yet to print.”
In order to meet the ever mounting demand for licences, the Department has to distribute around 4,000 licences everyday. However, its printers are capable of printing only 2,000 licences each card, Dhakal informs, suggesting the licence aspirants have to continue waiting for more than months even after they pass the tests.
The Department is preparing to distribute the licences printed by Malika after plastic lamination as the printing is of substandard quality.
The company had used thermal printing method. The letters printed in this technology get erased over time.
