Going digital: Vehicle registration goes online

Computerised system to be launched today for facilitating new owners

LAHORE: Starting today, new vehicle owners will be able to apply for registration at the point of sale instead of going to the excise and taxation department. The dealers, or showroom owners, will now order licence plates for their customers from their own outlets.

The inauguration ceremony of the computerised Dealer Vehicle Registration System (DVRS) will be held at 180-H Model Town, where Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif will present the first authorised licences.



At least 15 dealers from the districts of Lahore, Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur and Rawalpindi are in line to get the licences today at the inauguration, where the chief minister will log into the portal and formally launch the website.

Under the DVRS portal, the registration of vehicles and issuance of licence plates will be done at the point of sale through an easy-to-operate online portal designed by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB).

The DVRS was planned by the Special Monitoring Unit’s (SMU) Law and Order Department in collaboration with the Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control department and the Punjab Information Technology Board.

The system is also connected with the National Bank of Pakistan database, through which as soon as the customer pays the registration fee, the amount will be deducted from the dealer’s accounts and transferred to the government online. An automated receipt will be generated on the spot and given to the customer.

The customer will then be given a licence plate after the payment of the registration fee and generation of the receipt. The registration book will be sent directly to the vehicle owner’s residence by the E&T department after the final verification of documents.

An additional benefit of this step is the revenue lapse that existed under the old system will be eliminated as the government will now collect the registration fee even before the vehicle comes on the road.

SMU’s Rida Shahzad told The Express Tribune the old process of registration was a tedious one for the citizens as they had to stand in long lines to get their vehicles registered at the E&T department.

To avoid inconvenience, she said, citizens used to register their vehicles through unregistered agents.

The new system will not only discourage forged and applied-for number plates but streamline the whole process of registration
as well.

This will also eliminate the risk for citizens as the “applied-for” vehicles were frequently stolen and used for criminal and terrorist activities because such vehicles are untraceable having no record with the E&T database.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2016.