Jharkhand will soon complete a decade of the chip-based smart card system of issuing driving licence and registration details of vehicles. Ironically, the State has failed to reap the benefit that comes with the technology introduced, which maintains detail of card holders in a chip pasted on plastic card and cannot be tampered with under normal circumstances.
The system was introduced in 2005 in Jharkhand and such cards were initially issued in three districts-- Ranchi, Dhanbad, Jamshedpur-- and subsequently extended to 14 districts.
However, smart card based technology could not be adopted by another important wing of the State—traffic police—which keeps an eye on vehicles plying on the street and has the responsibility of catching stolen vehicles also. And, in the absence of the any device that can access the genuine information stored in chip to match with what is printed on the plastic card information network becomes the only method to recover stolen vehicles. The need for such a device is being lately felt by Ranchi police after nabbing an interstate gang of vehicle lifters but on a tip-off not by using modern technology. The gang is being said to be involved in stealing about 50 cars before getting caught.
“There is no such device available with traffic police. We believe that we could stop theft of vehicle if we are provided with a device that can access information stored in the chip,” acknowledged City SP Anoop Birtharay who is also in additional charge of SP-Traffic.
Notably, the handheld devices have been provided to the District Transport Officer (DTO) of all districts where chip embedded smart card driving licenses and registration cards are being currently issued. Incidentally, the department of Transport was contemplating purchase of more such devices but the plan was later dropped by the department and it has been lying on back burner from a very long time.
Notwithstanding the benefits no initiatives were taken either from the department of Transport nor from the police to make the technology serve better to the people by equipping traffic police with the handheld devices.
“They never attempted to seek cooperation on this matter. Steps like these has to be initiated from their end not ours,” said an official of Transport department.
Notably, as per the statistics released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 2053 cases of vehicle theft were reported from across the State in 2012 which went marginally up to 2073 in 2013 with recovery being 433 and 407 correspondingly.