Ahmedabad: RTO services across Gujarat faced major disruption on Tuesday after the National Informatics Centre (NIC)-managed “Vahan” portal suffered a technical breakdown, bringing both online and offline operations to a standstill and leaving more than 25,000 applications pending.

The disruption affected a wide range of services including new vehicle registration, regular number allocation, HSRP applications, loan entry and cancellation, transfer of old vehicles, inter-state vehicle transfers and transport vehicle permits. Offline work at Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) also remained shut due to the portal failure.

Thousands of applicants who arrived at RTO offices across the state were left stranded and forced to wait for hours in the scorching heat, as no official advisory or update was issued on social media regarding the outage. Officials later appealed to citizens to visit RTO offices only after confirming that services had resumed.

The issue reportedly followed a series of technical problems in NIC servers, with similar disruptions affecting services for four days last week as well. Senior transport department officials continued to hold meetings and review the matter, while several appointments had to be rescheduled.

The prolonged disruption also impacted the automobile sector. Vehicle dealers said they were unable to complete registrations and hand over newly purchased vehicles to customers. Frustrated customers reportedly created scenes at several showrooms after delivery schedules were delayed.

Applicants and transport service users expressed anger over what they described as poor communication and inadequate response from authorities, raising questions over the state transport department’s handling of repeated technical failures. DeshGujarat