RTA services in Hyderabad take a beating due to dud servers

Hyderabad: The services at the RTA offices in the city were affected due to technical glitches during the last two days as the system failed to send one-time password (OTP) for taking up the transactions.

According to official sources, the system could not generate the OTPs for completion of transactions in the RTA office as there have been problems with the servers. While the OTPs were not generated the entire day on Wednesday, on Thursday the services were hampered at regular intervals. If the OTPs were not generated, the transactions would not be completed, slots would not be booked for the transactions, said an official.

The online system was started on a pilot basis at Secunderabad RTA office in 2002 when Chandrababu Naidu was the Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh. Later the system was introduced in the district offices and a three-tier system was followed as more online servers were added and data was kept in the main server.

Sources said that there were no efforts made to increase the capacity of the server as the transactions were done on old servers. The servers were not changed in the last 10 years, said the officials, adding that they had no funds to increase the capacity of servers.

Apart from this, there is a huge shortage of smart cards, and as a result of this lakhs of cards are pending. The cards are used in driving licence, registration certificate books and other documents. The citizens who undergo tests are made to wait for two months to get their licence because of shortage of cards, the officials noted.