Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has decided to modify the format of driving licenses to smart card type driving licences.

Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha that his Ministry has prescribed a common standard format and design of the Driving Licence for the whole of the country.

This Ministry, through its flagship application called SARATHI developed by NIC, has a common countrywide database of all driving license holders. Almost 15 crore driving license records are available in its central repository.

The SARATHI application has the feature to identify duplicate records online in real time and access information about the challans if any.