The vehicle information is just an SMS away for enforcement agencies as national informatics centre (NIC) has developed an application whereby an official can send a SMS having  the registration number of a vehicle to a particular number and the system will revert with details like vehicles owner etc.

The government is also planning to digitize the legacy data under the VAHAN and SARATHI initiative, which is estimated to be about 40% of the overall data base. The effort is to ensure that the data base of driving licenses (DLs) and registration certificates (RCs) throughout the country is complete and available online. This will enable RTOs to verify DLs/RCs issued by RTOs across the country and also identify duplicate/fake DLs and RCs.

The dataset will also help in case of increasing penalties on second and subsequent offences and overloading offences for cancellation and suspension of licences
It will facilitate interactive systems through hand held instruments that are able to read and record data in the smart cards issued for DLs and RCs by the traffic constables on the roads in order to levy the higher penalties.

Government has already established a data base at the NIC Data Centre, Hyderabad, which will act as data base for the national register and the state registers. The modules of VAHAN and SARATHI have been provided to all RTOs and 942 RTOs, out of 975 RTOs in the country have been computerised. The National Register and National Transport Portal have been launched in July 2011