January 1: The number of recipients of 'smart' driving licenses from the Ekantakuna-based Department of Transport Management has surpassed 350,000.

According to the department, it has issued smart licenses to 354,000 people in the past four years while 203,000 are in queue to obtain the electronic document, according to a report published by Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS).

Until last year, the Ekantakuna-based office was the only office to issue smart driving licenses. But now, all transport offices across the country issue smart licenses, according to RSS.

The state-run news agency further said that any individual passing the written exam for acquiring driving license and successfully completing the 'trial' are eligible to receive the smart cards and so far 557,000 (for both new and renewed services) have paid the revenue seeking smart cards.

According to RSS, Section Officer Ramesh Poudel admitted that lack of sufficient number of equipment to print cards has caused difficulty to provide cards on time.

Service seekers who have passed the exam as well as trial have to wait for over a year to get smart licenses at present. In order to ease the printing of the smart licenses, the department had awarded a one-off contract some months ago to a private company to print upto 600,000 smart licenses within 45 days. However, the company- Malika Incorporate – has failed to print the licenses on time reportedly due to technical problems.

Gokarna Prasad Upadhyay, then spokesperson of DoTM, had said in October that more than 500,000 applicants who have already passed the written examinations as well as trial for license were waiting since a long time to get their licenses.