In an endeavour to introduce e-governance in motor transport system, the ministry of road transport and highways is planning to introduce an ‘e-payment scheme' for national permits.

Under the scheme, the associated banks will offer e-payment facility for payment of national permit fee, levied on heavy vehicle owners from any corner of the country.

The ministry has entered into an understanding with banking majors, SBI and ICICI for providing the facility. Besides, the department is also in conversation with another private major, HDFC for offering the facility. Once started, the operation will be extended to other banks as well.

The banks involved are also required to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state governments.

The ministry plans to kick off the facility by April 1, 2010.

The process involves linking of e-payment portal of the ministry with the banking portals.

It is expected that the move will benefit 4.5 heavy vehicle owners in the country. The system will also help in bringing transparency, besides making operations faster and hassle free.

In a similar e-governance initiative, the State Transport Authority revealed its plans to recover challans using credit cards.

The Union budget 2009-10 has proposed a slew of e-governance initiatives like smart cards for economically challenged class, unique identity card for citizens and computerised employment exchanges.

The regional transport office (RTO) is also working on a 148 crore project, attempting to centralise vehicle registration data from all the state registers.