The union ministry of road transport and highways has finally decided upon the design and colour of the proposed smart card-based driving license in the country. A notification in this regard, which has received all required clearances from different ministries, will be issued soon.

The smart card DL, which will have a certain colour pattern, will be a tamper-proof plastic card embedded with a microprocessor chip. The chip will have all details about the licence-holder (name, blood group) stored in it, which will be maintained in National Informatics Centre database. The database will act as a national register and state register for the ministry of road transport and highways.

In a bid to curb increasing road accidents, the ministry also wanted to introduce point system on each driving licence holder. Under this system, if a driver is found to be involved in more number of accidents or traffic violations, there will be a system to add points against his driving licence. If the points reach a certain level, the licence will be suspended for a particular period. Before launching the points system, all the states first have to introduce the smart card-based driving licences.