Gearing up to store the data which has been stored in paper documents for decades in the digital format, the regional transport office (RTO) of Dehradun would possibly commence the digitisation process from the next month. At present, there are about 12 lakh files that are stored in the various rooms of the RTO building at Rajpur Road. The officials stated that it becomes a challenge sometimes to store and retrieve data from about 12 lakh files manually, especially during an urgent situation. The digitisation of all such files would save time and space in the RTO building besides making its premises paper-free.

According to the assistant regional transport officer (ARTO), Dwarika Prasad, the transport department is looking forward to digitising the files but it might take a few more weeks as the procedure of digitisation is still under process at the Central and the State Government level. He said that all the pending procedures will possibly be completed by the end of this month.

It is pertinent to mention here that the transport office of Dehradun was set up in the year 1964 and files related to the vehicles, licenses, transport permits, fitness of vehicles are stockpiled in several iron racks, almirahs and storerooms which can be easily observed in the RTO building. Meanwhile, the officials also informed that there is currently no backlog of applications for driving licenses in the transport office which occurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic last year. They informed that now regular registrations of all kinds of driving licenses are being done in RTO.