Driving licence renewal at optical centres begins

One of the four Trusted Agents —Yateem Opticians— has gone live with the new system and motorists can avail the facility at any of the 40 Yateem branches across the UAE.

The other three Trusted Agents —Barakat, Al Maghrabi and Grand— are currently doing trials on the system and would go live soon.

The system is based on the concept that a motorist has to visit an optician for an eye test before renewing the driving licence, so why not get the entire job done there itself.

“The Trusted Agent is another channel that RTA has added to its services in order to enhance the level of convenience for our motorists. Our idea is to provide one-stop solutions where a customer can get an entire job done, rather than running around to different centres,” said Ahmed Hashem Bahrozyan, CEO of RTA’s Licensing Agency.

To avail the service, a motorist has to visit any of the branches of the four Trusted Agents and submit his valid passport copy along with the expired Driving Licence. An eye test would be done and a positive result would be followed by the processing of the licence. The costumer would get a temporary paper copy immediately followed by the original licence in two to three days by courier.

Revealing the criteria based on which the four companies were selected, Bahrozyan said: “We were basically looking at the reach of these companies.

Just like the Trusted Agents for insurance we chose last year, the four we have selected now have the most number of branches across the country and have the capability to handle the costumers. We are in talks with some of the others and could increase the number soon.”

The system has been under trial with Yateem for the last few weeks and the service has gone smoothly, says Mathews Jacob, company’s General Manager.

“We have been having a few costumers everyday at some of our branches and the entire process has gone really well. We have not publicised this as yet because we want to go slow and work out glitches in the system, if any, before we go to town. But we are ready to handle any number of customers at all our branches,” said Mathews Jacob.

He said that many people don’t know of the facility as yet.

Once it is publicised he hopes to have a windfall.

“We don’t have a financial deal with RTA but we hope that this facility would increase the footfall to our branches.”

Apart from the facility to renew a Dubai-issued driving licence in any of the trusted agent branches across the country, RTA has also launched the facility to transfer a licence issued by other emirate, provided the holder is currently working in Dubai.

“If a person’s licence issued in any other emirate expires and he is currently working in Dubai, then we are ready to issue him a new licence without a test,” informed Bahrozyan.

The facility would help solve problems for many motorists who until now had go through a cumbersome process of NOCs and other documentations.

shafaat@khaleejtimes.com