E-Paper
Overloaded server causes breakdown of online transport services
Officials say NIC server often slows down or breaks down everyday causing huge inconvenience to public
All portal-based online transport services like registration of vehicles, issuance of driving licence etc have been facing frequent disruptions across Uttar Pradesh for more than two weeks now, causing huge inconvenience to service seekers.
Officials in the know of things said that the transport department that finds its revenue collection also getting affected for the same reason has taken up the issue with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) that manages the VAHAN and the SARTHI software nationally.
On Tuesday, the NIC’s server remained down almost for the entire day, making it impossible for delivery of services at regional transport offices (RTOs) across the state even as visitors who went there to avail various services kept waiting for system to be functional.
“I found it very difficult to apply online for the driving licence because the transport department’s portal often either slowed down or was not working at all and when I went to the RTO office on for biometrics on Tuesday, after I finally managed to apply online, I had to waste at least 4 hours waiting for the server to function but in vain,” said an Ravi Kumar, a resident of Lucknow.
Additional transport commissioner (IT) Ashok Kumar Singh said the NIC’s server had been having some issues for the last two weeks, affecting online transport services in the state.
“Not only the delivery of services getting affected, the revenue collection of our department has also dipped because vehicle owners are not able to deposit taxes and fees online when the server is down,” he said.
“We have written a letter to the NIC asking them to increase their bandwidth or take other steps they deem fit to normalise services at the earliest,” Singh said.
The Union ministry of road transport and highways, has entrusted NIC with the task of standardising and deploying two softwares - VAHAN for Vehicle registration and related services and SARATHI for driving licenses to define same standards for these documents on a pan-India level to ensure interoperability, correctness and timely availability of information.
“The root cause of the problem lies in the latest initiative to centralise both these applications for ensuring higher transparency, security and reliability of operations through a countrywide unified database,” said another transport official.
Their overloaded server, he pointed out, had either experienced severe slowdowns or outright breakdowns. “The NIC perhaps needs to expand the server’s bandwidth suitably in matching with the load of online services,” he suggested.
NIC senior director (IT), Uttar Pradesh, Piyush Srivastava admitted to disruptions in online transport services in the state but this problem, he claimed, was pan-India and not localised.
“The problem is not confined to just UP but exists nationally since the VAHAN and SARTHI sofrwares function centrally,” he said. He attributed glitches to some issues related to IT resources.
“We have received an e-mail from the transport commissioner, bringing the issue to our notice. We are trying to address the problem and hope the services will be normal very soon,” Srivastava said.
