LUCKNOW, Feb. 3 -- Thousands of driving licence (DL) applicants in UP are facing prolonged delays, with some waiting for over a month despite completing all formalities and receiving confirmation messages, raising concerns over administrative congestion in the transport department. Several applicants said their licence process was completed weeks ago, but the physical DL has not been delivered, nor have they received any status updates. Gaurav Kapoor (name changed) said his DL application was completed on January 1, 2026, and he received a confirmation message too. "Even after more than a month, I have neither received the licence nor any update from the RTO," he said. However, the experience has not been uniform. Deepak, a journalist, said he applied for a new DL in the second week of January and received it within a week after completing the process, pointing to inconsistencies in processing and delivery across applications. Transport officials attribute the delay primarily to issues linked to Aadhaar. RTO (enforcement) officer Prabhat Pandey said many applications were held up because the father's name was not visible in the Aadhaar database. "The father's name is mandatory for DL processing. In several cases, because of the absence of the father's name on the Aadhaar card, there was hurdle in the issuance of a driving licence, which is why the issuance process slowed down," he said. Officials from the transport commissioner office earlier explained that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had removed the father's name from newly issued and updated Aadhaar cards in recent months. As the learner's licence application requires the father's name, applicants were unable to proceed. Following intervention by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), applicants can now manually enter the father's name, allowing the process to be completed. Apart from technical issues, operational changes also contributed to the delay, said a senior RTO official. "In November 2025, the contract for printing driving licences was shifted to a new private firm, Silver Touch. During the transition, a backlog was created, and several applications are still pending," the official said, adding that efforts are underway to clear the queue....