No fines in Delhi for driving with expired driving licence, RC till December 31

The directive comes a day after the ministry of road transport and highways (MORTH) issued an advisory to all state governments to further extend the deadline for renewal of transport documents.

People driving with an expired licence or a vehicle registration certificate will not be prosecuted in Delhi till December 31 as the state transport department has issued orders to its regional transport offices (RTOs) to not process any application for renewal of such documents in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and in light of the Centre extending their validity till the end of the year.

Traffic snarl at Ring Road near Sarai Kale Khanin New Delhi. (Photo by Mohd Zakir/ Hindustan Times)

The directive comes a day after the ministry of road transport and highways (MORTH) issued an advisory to all state governments to further extend the deadline for renewal of transport documents. This is the third such extension after earlier advisories on March 30 and June 9.

Senior transport officials, however, clarified that the exempted expired documents do not include pollution under control (PUC) certificates.

“We request people not to queue up at RTOs in Delhi unless one has to get a learner’s or permanent licence. The ministry has extended the validity of fitness, permits, licences, registration or other documents under Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 till December 31, 2020,” a transport official said on condition of anonymity.

Normally, driving without a valid licence attracts a penalty of Rs 5,000 as per the MV Act.

Unlike other government agencies such as SDM offices that are generally witnessing a low turnout of people, the state transport department said it is burdened with a deluge of queries regarding driving licences, fitness certificates and permit renewals.

Services such as making a DL now entail a long wait, which can drag as much as up to two months in RTOs such as Rohini, Sarai Kale Khan and Dwarka. At the Sarai Kale Khan RTO, for example, one of the busiest in Delhi, as many as 250 driving tests used to be conducted on its semi-automatic driving test tracks every day during pre-Covid times. Now, only around 80 tests are conducted there on a single day. The number of online tests for a learners’ licence has come down to 50.

“Due to social distancing norms, which cannot be compromised with, we have capped the number of daily driving tests being conducted at every regional transport office (RTO). Hence, the demand is naturally much higher. We are trying to make people aware of the Central government’s latest relaxed rule for expired transport documents. So, there is no need to panic and come to the RTO for renewal as of now,” said a second senior transport official.