Services delayed as RTO upgrades software

Over the last few days, several private vehicles owners, who visited the regional transport offices (RTOs) to get their vehicles registered, were asked to come back days later as the official system was being updated with the latest version, P Samson, a vehicle owner said on Monday.

Moreover, truck operators, who have been relying on the shipping companies, were also facing hardships due to the delay. The issue has been on a rise since August 22 and this has forced the truck operators, who have been waiting to avail fitness certificates for their vehicles, to hire trucks to transport cargo to various destinations. Hence, the operators had to incur an increase in the expenditure.

However, apart from vehicle registration and the issuance of fitness certificates, other services like issuance of learners’ and driving licenses were being provided at the RTO as usual, said Thoothukudi Regional Transport Officer, S Mannar Mannan.

“The existing version of the software ‘Vahan-1’ is being upgraded to ‘Vahan-4’. A certain amount of time is required for the upgradation process to be over,” he said, adding that normal operations at the RTOs were expected to resume on Wednesday.

Works were partially suspended since August 20 in Thoothukudi and Kovilpatti RTOs. The upgradation work is being carried out in batches in various parts of the state. The local server data of the registered vehicles have been linked with the national server and a trial run was carried out on Monday to test whether the data entered were all correct, he said.