Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has made online medical certificates mandatory for renewal of driving licence issued by the state transport authority (STA) from January 26.
As per the provision of Central Motor Vehicles Rule (CMVR) 1989, a medical certificate (in Form 1A) is mandatory for any applicant over 40 years of age, both for fresh licence and renewal.
At present, the applicants submit a manual certificate in paper format. In this process, the correctness of the medical certificate cannot be ascertained as fake certificates are also uploaded, said Dipti Ranjan Patra, joint commissioner, transport (technical).
In order to make the process more transparent and to ensure proper medical tests by genuine doctors, the STA has developed a new online doctor registration portal where about 167 MBBS doctors having Medical Council of India (MCI) registration have been enrolled, the official said.
These doctors will now issue medical certificates to the applicants through the online Sarathi portal, and no uploading of form 1A would be required, Patra said.
Starting January 26, online issuance of medical certificates will be mandatory for DL and LL applicants more than 40 years of age, he added.
The joint commissioner said this initiative will also ensure that no one uploads a fake medical certificate and gets a driving licence.
IANS
