Vehicle owners to mandatorily link mobile numbers with Vahan database from April 1, 2020

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The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has issued a notification, dated November 29, 2019, in this regard with draft rules to amend the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, and sought public comments on the rules within 30 days.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Vahan deals with data related to vehicle registration.
  • While issuing a fresh or duplicate RC, the mobile number will be needed.
  • The mobile number will be required for grant of a no-objection certificate also.

Come April 1, 2020, and the vehicle owners will need to have their mobile number linked with the government's Vahan database to avail a plethora of services pertaining to vehicle registration and ownership transfer, among others

In this regard, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has issued a notification, dated November 29, 2019, with draft rules to amend the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, and sought public comments on the rules within 30 days.

"Normally for any service related to vehicle certification, mobile numbers were not being formally captured. Only during the registration of new vehicles they were being used for OTP authentication but not being stored in our databases. Now, from April next year, for any type of services related to cars it will be mandatory to link mobile numbers with our Vahan database," a senior transport ministry official, who did not wish to be named, told Hindustan Times.

Vahan deals with data related to vehicle registration. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways maintains the Centralized National Registry through the National Informatics Centre and it has approximately 25 crore vehicle registration records.

Following the amendment of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, the mobile number will be required at the time of making an application for motor vehicle registration, issuing a fresh or duplicate registration certificate and its renewal.

The mobile number will also be required for application and grant of a no-objection certificate, transferring the ownership of the vehicle and changing the address in the registration certificate. It will be needed while making an application for entry of an agreement of hire-purchase/lease hypothecation.

"Considering the urgency of the issue, the relevant forms in the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989 which pertain to the service relating to the motor vehicle i.e. the registration, transfer, register of motor vehicle, renewal, duplicate copy, grant of NOC, change of address, entry or termination entry for hire/purchase/hypothecation are proposed to be amended to include for capturing the mobile number of the owner as and when they apply for availing services," the official added.