Lucknow: Samajwadi Party MLA Faheem Irfan recently questioned the Transport Minister during the assembly session. He asked- Is there a system to check the authenticity of the health certificate submitted by the candidate for issuing driving license from the state transport office?
Where is the medical certificate required for a driving license made and what is the arrangement for getting the medical done? Also, from which doctors is the medical done. After this, the Transport Department has started preparations to appoint a nominated doctor for medical across the state.
Preparations to strictly implement the rules: The Transport Department is now preparing to strictly implement the rules for driving licenses. License renewal will not be possible without a medical examination. Till now, people used to get their driving licenses by getting a medical test done from somewhere.
Doctors from government hospitals in the panel: The Transport Department is including doctors from more than a dozen government hospitals in Lucknow in the panel for medical. Doctors have already been appointed in four of these hospitals. Medicals will have to be done from them and only these medicals will be valid.
Only doctors will upload the certificate: Only the panel of doctors decided by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) will upload the health certificate. Only after this the renewal license will be approved. After doing the medical, the doctor himself will upload the documents on the portal of the Transport Department. This new system is being implemented.
Age related problems will be checked: During DL renewal, a health certificate issued by the doctor according to age is required. The purpose behind this is to ensure that the applicant does not have any health related problem at the time of renewal. His health is checked. Eye check-up, ear check-up, hands and feet are checked to see if he is completely healthy.
Heartbeat is also measured. Only after this a health certificate is issued. As per the system till now, this certificate was submitted manually, now since the services of RTO are being made online, hence the system has also been changed.
Consideration on panel of 12 doctors: According to Lucknow RTO officials, under this new system, there will be a panel of more than 12 doctors in Lucknow. When these doctors are determined by the CMO, the online system will be implemented. Also, for the information of the applicants, details of where the doctors sit in which hospital will also be released, so that the applicants do not face any kind of problem.
Four doctors deployed in Lucknow: Four doctors have been deployed for medical certificate by Lucknow RTO office. Out of these, Dr. Anshul Kishore Gautam in CHC Kakori, Dr. Dharmendra Kumar Maurya in CHC Sarojininagar, Dr. Ranjana Bala in Combined Hospital Thakurganj and Dr. Parmatmanand Ahirwar have been included in the panel.
When is medical certificate required: Please note that persons aged 50 years or more need a medical certificate to get a driving license. Medical certificate is required for getting a commercial license and renewal of license.
In special circumstances, a medical certificate is also required for physically handicapped persons to get a DL. In such a situation, applicants keep visiting hospitals to get medical certificates and have to face problems. Many times it has also come to light that many applicants used to submit fake certificates in the assistant divisional office, but now efforts are being made to stop this.
More than 60000 licenses are issued every month: People above the age of 50 require a medical certificate to renew their driving license. If we talk about the number of driving licenses issued to this age group every month in the entire state, it is close to 60000. Every day 3000 renewal driving licenses are issued. In Lucknow, the slot for renewal driving license is for 201 persons.
Lucknow's ARTO (Administration) Pradeep Kumar Singh says that a panel of doctors is being formed in Lucknow. So far, four doctors have been deployed by the CMO. The remaining doctors will also be deployed soon.
This step is important towards making the online system foolproof. Doctors will be given a login ID and password of the Sarathi portal. This will be made mandatory after the complete list of doctors is released.
