Lucknow, Oct. 30 -- Uttar Pradesh is set to roll out new faceless or contactless transport services, including hill endorsements for commercial vehicle drivers, duplicate Public Service Vehicle (PSV) badges, and additional driving licence endorsements for vehicles used by defence personnel. The state will also allow online hypothecation addition for vehicles purchased on loan. Interestingly, before Uttarakhand was carved out as a separate state in 2000, UP used to issue hill endorsements for driving in its hilly regions. The practice stopped thereafter but is now being resumed as part of the state's digital transport reforms desired by the Centre. The decision was taken at a recent meeting chaired by chief secretary SP Goyal following directions from the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to make all services under the Sarathi and Vahan platforms completely contactless. Faceless or contactless services mean that citizens can access transport-related facilities-such as driving licence renewal, vehicle registration, or permit applications-entirely online without visiting Regional Transport Offices (RTOs). The process uses digital verification, Aadhaar-based authentication, and online document uploads, eliminating the need for physical submissions or in-person appearances. This not only saves time and travel costs for applicants but also improves transparency and curbs the role of intermediaries. "UP already provides 45 transport services in faceless mode, and three to four more are in the pipeline," said Sunita Verma, additional commissioner (Transport). The National Informatics Centre (NIC), Delhi, has been asked to upgrade the Sarathi software to support the introduction of the hill region endorsement service. Until now, commercial vehicle drivers from Uttar Pradesh who operated in hilly states like Uttarakhand had to obtain hill endorsements from those states' transport departments. With the new arrangement, UP will issue these endorsements within the state itself through the Sarathi portal, making the entire process faceless and contactless. A hill endorsement is mandatory for commercial vehicle drivers operating in hilly terrain and certifies that they have undergone special training to handle steep and challenging roads. Significantly, UP had stopped issuing PSV badges decades ago. However, the Motor Vehicle Rules required them as a certification that a driver is qualified and authorised to drive a public service vehicle like a taxi, auto-rikshaw or bus. Acting on MoRTH's recent directive, the state resumed issuing badges about two months ago. "Now, duplicate PSV badges will also be issued in faceless mode, and instead of a physical card, the badge will be digitally endorsed on the driving licence itself," Verma said. The state transport department is also enhancing digital services under the Vahan portal. While hypothecation termination-removing a bank's name from a vehicle registration after loan repayment-was already online, the addition of a new hypothecation required a physical visit to the RTO. "With these additions, Uttar Pradesh moves closer to a fully digital, transparent, and citizen-friendly transport administration," the official claimed....