The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on Thursday issued an advisory to all states to accept driving licence, vehicle registration certificate and other documents in electronic form, if presented through the Centre’s DigiLocker or mParivahan online platforms. These documents are to be considered the same as certificates issued by transport authorities.

“This is in response to a number of grievances/Right to Information applications received in the ministry where citizens have complained that the documents available in DigiLocker or the mParivahan app are not considered valid by the traffic police or the motor vehicles department,” the ministry said in a statement, according to IANS.

The advisory said that DigiLocker and mParivahan have the ability to pull a citizen’s documents into electronic form. It added that the Insurance Information Board is uploading data related to insurance of new vehicles and renewal of insurance in the electronic database on a daily basis.

The ministry added that the state authorities do not need to physically seize documents when they have to be impounded. The agencies can simply have the impounding reflected in the electronic database.

The ministry’s advisory comes days after the Bihar transport department decided to accept documents from DigiLocker. The Centre had integrated DigiLocker with the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in September 2016 to allow people to store a digital version of their driving licence and vehicle documents on the platform.