A backlog of pending driving licence applications, complaints from citizens, and a government determined to prove it listens — Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren turned a routine transport event on 28 July 2026 into a live accountability exercise, clearing the decks on stalled licences and calling for sharper momentum in the state's simulator-based driver training programme.

Simulator machines, pilot-style training — on Jharkhand's roads

Speaking at the event, Soren drew a direct parallel between the training methods used at the facility and those used in aviation. 'Just as pilots are trained on simulators before they fly aircraft, drivers here are being trained in exactly the same way,' he said. The initiative uses flight-simulator-style machines to train both commercial and private vehicle drivers before licence issuance — a model several Indian states have adopted under the amended Motor Vehicles Act framework to standardise testing and reduce subjectivity in road assessments.

Soren acknowledged the programme had taken time to get off the ground but called it 'a commendable and far-sighted initiative.' He was unambiguous about what comes next: the pace cannot slow down. 'There is still a great deal of work left in road safety and training,' he said, directing the Jharkhand Transport Department to accelerate.

Why Soren called applicants together — and what he found

The CM explained the thinking behind the event with unusual candour. Citizens had been filing complaints — about delays in caste certificates, birth certificates, death certificates — and driving licences were no different. Rather than wait for reports to filter up, Soren said he wanted to see the ground reality himself. He issued a clear directive: every pending licence application had to be cleared before this event took place.

On the day, applicants from multiple districts attended, and Soren said he could see the work had moved forward. 'The Transport Department may appear small,' he noted, 'but its work and its impact are very large.' He urged the department to continue with 'full diligence and honesty.'

Grievance redressal as governance — the bigger signal

The event sits inside a broader pattern in Jharkhand under Soren's government: using public-facing events to force clearance of administrative backlogs while signalling responsiveness to ordinary citizens. By linking the licence delays explicitly to the same grievance pipeline that handles caste and birth certificates, Soren framed the Transport Department not as a niche bureaucracy but as a front-line delivery arm of the state.

The next test will be whether simulator centres expand to more districts and whether pending application counts stay low — or quietly climb back up.