Traffic Rules Compliance Goes Digital: Government’s mParivahan App Records Exceptional Rise With New Motor Vehicles Act

mParivahan, the Central government developed mobile application to help users store legally acceptable versions of their documents has recorded an exceptional rise since the implementation of Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act from 1 September.

So much so, that the app entered Google Play Store’s top free apps list with its average rating at 4.4 with daily 1-1.5 lakh downloads in September, as reported by the Business Line.

The app recorded over 35 lakh downloads in the last month as against the 75 lakh till August since it was launched in 2016 by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), the IT arm of the government. The app has been funded by the Road Transport and Highways Ministry.

“From an average of 1.5-2 lakh downloads a month till August 2019, the app is now being downloaded 1-1.5 lakh times a day,” Joydeep Shome, Senior Technical Director, NIC said.

The app's rating on the play store has also risen from 3.2 during the period with 67 per cent of the users giving it a five-star rating in the past month.

“User hits on the app — which means people searching for vehicle or licence details — has also gone up sharply. Every day (in September), we see an average of 20 lakh user searches, against the average of 1 lakh daily (till August),” Shome added, signalling a shift in user behaviour.

Although several states are yet to apply the new rules, there have been reports of increased compliance among the general public since the rules were introduced, which provision high penalties for traffic offences including incomplete documentation.