What is Sarathi?

Sarathi is the national application behind driving-licence services in India under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, as part of Parivahan Sewa. Available services and digitised record coverage can vary.

It is the licence counterpart to Vahan. Vahan holds vehicles, Sarathi holds drivers, and the two are separate systems that happen to sit behind the same Parivahan front door. Applications for a learner licence, a permanent licence, a renewal, a duplicate or the addition of a vehicle class all run through Sarathi.

For an applicant, use the official state-specific service options. For a fleet reviewing a driver, establish the permitted verification route and the available licence record; a citizen-service account does not by itself establish API access.

When reviewing the available licence record, check the following rather than treating one status field as a complete dispatch decision:

• Whether the licence number and identifying details match the submitted document. Investigate a missing result with the issuing authority.
• Validity dates, separately for transport and non-transport entitlements. These expire on different schedules and a driver can be current on one and lapsed on the other.
• The classes of vehicle the holder is authorised to drive, such as LMV, HMV, HGMV or a transport endorsement.
• The issuing RTO and the licence status, including whether it has been suspended or disqualified.

Personal details are masked, in the same way Vahan masks owner details. You are confirming a licence, not pulling a background file.

Expiry is the check everyone runs and the class is the one that gets missed. A licence can be perfectly valid and still not cover the vehicle the driver is handed.

The common failure is a driver holding a light motor vehicle entitlement being put on a heavy goods vehicle. The card looks current, the date is fine, and the entitlement is wrong.

Check the entitlement for the assigned vehicle as well as the dates. Insurance coverage and claim decisions depend on the policy and circumstances; a glossary explanation or licence lookup does not decide them.

For an individual licence or application, use the service linked from Sarathi or Parivahan Sewa and follow its current access requirements.

If you manage a fleet, set a review schedule and identify who resolves expired, missing, or conflicting documents. MoboSafe’s driver verification workflow covers document submission and review; automated checks depend on the configured service, authorised access, and record coverage.

For ongoing assignments and document history, review driver management. Bring the records and review process you need to support. Neither workflow issues a government licence or establishes unrestricted Sarathi API access.

They are confused constantly, including by people who use both weekly.

Vahan answers questions about a vehicle: RC status, fitness, insurance, PUC, permit, pending challans. Sarathi answers questions about a person: licence validity, authorised classes, licence status.

A complete pre-dispatch check needs both, because a compliant truck driven by an unlicensed driver and a licensed driver in a non-compliant truck are stopped at the same check-post for different reasons. See what Vahan is and the Vahan portal services guide.

• "No record found" usually means the licence number was entered in the wrong format rather than that the licence is fake. Formats vary by state, and older licences digitised during migration are the most likely to be missing.
• The date of birth must match the record exactly, and a mismatch returns nothing rather than an error explaining why.
• A licence issued very recently may not appear immediately, because the record propagates from the issuing RTO.
• If the service is unavailable, use the official help route and try again as instructed. An error or blank result does not establish that a licence is fake or invalid.