The reason: the contractor, who's been assigned the contract of preparing licenses and RCs has refused to do the job till his payment, which he says has been due for over eight months and amounts to nearly Rs 10 lakhs, is cleared.

Hundreds of persons seeking driving licenses and RCs had to go home disappointed as they were handed a slip asking them to come another day. According to sources, the employees of the contractor simply refused to entertain the slips and click photographs of the applicants. The Estate Office situated in DC's office has no contractor's men working there. "But we didn't have any stationery as the contractor refused to supply it. Therefore, we could not issue any RCs," said an employee.

The officials,however, asserted that the learners' licenses were made and issued.When contacted SDM Ashish Kundra, who incidentally assumed the charge of Licensing and Registering Authority only a week ago, said the contractor was "not working in accordance with the terms laid down for the contract, which is why his payments had to be held back".

With the contractor refusing to resume work, the officials have decided to return to the old procedure of obtaining the photographs from the applicants and scanning them. This is likely to affect the recently introduced system of issuing licenses and RCs within the same day. "For the time being, we're reverting to the same old procedure," said Kundra. "Work will resume tomorrow as we have decided to put our persons on the job."Incidentally, a few months ago, work at the Estate Office was severely hit when the same contractor had taken away a camera and computer belonging to him alleging non-payment.