RTO web portal failure across India; license services affected

Keeping the anonymity, an official from the Transport Commissioner Department, Mumbai, informed The Indian Express that the NIC is the central unit controlling the SARATHI web portal, which falls under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. “The website was not working, and the state government lacks technical information as the server is managed from Delhi,” said an official.

He further added that the issue was resolved on Friday afternoon for the RTOs, and the website was restored on Friday evening for the citizens.

Following the online system shutdown, operations at the Pune RTO, including processes such as issuing driving licences (including learner’s licence), licence renewal, address change on licences, and removal of fake licences, came to a halt.

Sanjeev Bhor, Deputy RTO, stated that the immediate impact of the server failure in Pune would have affected learning license services more, while other services were not much impacted.

“The main impact would have likely been on the learning licence service. If, on average, 500 transactions are processed for a learning licence per day, then around 1000 transactions might have been affected within two days. The issue has been resolved, and people will receive the next appointment,” he said.

As per the information, the NIC had earlier on Thursday informed the transport department that the system would be operational within two hours. However, the NIC failed on Thursday to resolve the malfunction and start the system. By Friday evening, the RTO’s online system was back in operation after the NIC addressed the issue.