KOCHI: With the opening up of international travel, Ernakulam regional transport office (RTO) has been witnessing a huge rush for securing international driving licences. The office issues a minimum of 20 such licences per day. Some days, it goes up to 40 to 60.
Majority of people who have secured the licences are students migrating to the UK, Canada and Germany. Rest are the ones migrating for work, including nurses.
As per the data collected, 1,201 international driving permits have been issued from Ernakulam RTO this year so far against 294 last year. This month till 22, 175 licences were issued in Ernakulam RTO limit.
“We used to issue around eight international driving licences after the Covid first wave. Now, it shoots up to a minimum of 20 licences per day. There were days when we used to issue 40-65 licences. Most of the migrations are to Europe and most of them are students,” said Ernakulam RTO Shabeer.
One who wants to secure an international driving licence needs to submit an application on the Sarathi portal. The applicant has to upload copies of both sides of the driving licence issued by the motor vehicles department. Front pages of visa and passport also need to be uploaded on the portal. After entering the rest of the details, the applicant has to remit a fee of Rs 1,000 and a service charge of Rs 275.
One will get the licence within seven days after filing the application following verification. However, sometimes issuing the licence gets delayed as the applicant uploads only the front side of the driving licence.
The details of the category of vehicles, allowing the person to drive, are on the rear side of the licence.
Most of the applicants in Ernakulam RTO limit are those below 30 years old. Of them, around 60% are men. Migration of students to European countries is not limited to the city limits. Rural areas are also witnessing a rising demand to migrate to foreign countries, shows the data.
As many as 807 international driving permits have been issued from Muvattupuzha RTO this year so far.
Consultancies which help students and job seekers to migrate to other countries also say there is a huge rush to move abroad.
“Many could not migrate last year due to Covid pandemic. The January batch has been full. Currently, the intake of the second batch is going on,” said an official in a consultancy in Ernakulam.
