Fiscal Nepal
First Business News Portal in English from Nepal
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s transport administration has plunged into yet another digital shutdown as the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) confirmed that its central data center has suffered a fresh system failure, forcing the government to halt all new driving licence applications nationwide.
The department said on Friday that the electronic driving licence system and new licence application portal have been completely shut down until further notice, marking the second major disruption in less than two months.
DoTM officials acknowledged that although the licence system had partially resumed on 16 Kartik, the recovery was short-lived. “The data centre that had been brought into partial operation has encountered another serious technical issue,” the Department said, suspending all application services abruptly.
The transport administration had already been struggling to restore digital services after the GenZ-led protests on 23 and 24 Bhadra, which caused significant physical and system damage to the department’s infrastructure. Despite temporary fixes, insiders say the government’s failure to upgrade outdated digital architecture has made the system extremely fragile.
With today’s shutdown, thousands of applicants across the country once again face uncertainty, long delays, and service backlogs. Driving licence distribution—already crippled after the protests—has now fallen into deeper chaos.
Critics argue that the repeated collapse of a national data system exposes glaring weaknesses in the government’s digital governance capacity and threatens the reliability of essential public services.
The Department has not provided a timeline for restoration, stating only that services will remain closed “until another notice is issued.”
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