Government of India earns Rs 65 cr by providing vehicle registrations & owners' data

As per news report, India government has earned Rs 65 crore by providing access to VAHAN, a website that deals with vehicle registrations and SARATHI, a website that deals with drivers’ licenses database. Since March 2019 till date, the government has been earning revenue from it.

Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari said that the revenue collected by the government by providing access to VAHAN and SARATHI database are Rupees 65 crores till date.

Maintained by ministry through National Informatics Centre (NIC), the Centralized National Registry for transport has compromised approximately 25 crore vehicle registration records and approximately 15 crore driving licence records. The information details like the residential address, email ID and even phone numbers have been shared by the government.

The access has been provided to 32 government entities and 87 private entities. The firm seeking bulk data can also obtain the data at Rs 3 crore from FY 2019-20. The educational institutions can obtain the data only for research purposes and for internal use only and are provided the bulk data one time on payment of an amount of Rs 5 lakh.

Data privacy is a major concern in India and though the Supreme Court has declared data privacy as a fundamental right but the country does not have proper data protection law.