The RTO Story

They have made so many procedures and rules in India that we need a huge documentation for almost everything till now. Yes, there are some places where automation has taken place but those are in only few sectors. Most of our work is dependent on the paper. Specially, when you need something from Government of India body, then you better die if you hate documents.


Recently, I have been to RTO where I applied for a Car driving license. It’s not that it was the first time I had been to RTO but 10 years back also I had ran for a 2-wheeler driving license. It was so difficult at that time, when 2 young girls explored an old Government building for getting a license for almost 5 days to get the formalities done. Even after waiting for hours, we were never sure that the work was going to be finished the same day, but we still persisted because we had no choice.


Today after 10 years, I was expecting some improvement till I reached there. But to my disappointment, there was almost none, except that they had taken an online test on some machines. The similar old buildings with no fans in the corridors where people were standing or the place where they waited for the test to begin. In this horrible heat of Mumbai, there was no botheration for humans. I think they are strong believers of the theory “Survival of the fittest”.


I reached the inspector who was supposed to see my documentation almost after an hour of waiting in the queue and to my frustration the inspector refused to accept my papers. When I asked for the reason, he told me that Leave & license Agreement cannot be taken as an address proof, they needed police verification for that. I showed him the copy of the document he had asked for but he insisted on getting the original, which I did not have. This meant I had to go back and get the necessary document from the Broker the next day and waste another day of my office in these old buildings.

I could not understand that if they do not consider Leave & License agreement as an address proof then why they keep such a formality where we have to waste about 3K of our money for registration. And over and above that we paid 100 bucks as a personal bribe which was made compulsory to get the work done on the same day. I had counted the number of applicants that day and they were almost 100 which meant he could easily earn 10K on a single day which means 2.4L black money in a month which totals to 29Lakhs per annum with no tax payment. Wow isn’t that a great job? In fact this is the sum only when the number of applicants were hundred, as per my assumption but actually that was only in our slot. There could be more slots in a day. Imagine how much money of this country gets wasted like this. Coming back to our expenses we wasted a few thousand for a document which does not hold any value.


It is not just one but many such formalities are there that we have to go through every now & then. Let me take one more example of PAN Card. At the beginning we were told that it will act as a unique identification number for us but today, what is happening? The actual picture is that PAN card is compulsory everywhere but along with that the same old formalities are still required. So in the nutshell, there is an addition of a formality and God forbidden if it gets lost, you are dead.

The inspector did not even see the PAN card copy of which I had the original; he focused only on Police verification. Why don’t we just do the police verifications and skip the agreement when the verification was the only thing which was valid?

After we got some orders from a senior, the inspector agreed to consider the copy of Police verification. It was a relief but half, because after that he wanted original marriage certificate, which I again did not have. Is this verification required only for a huge documentation? Or the purpose is to understand the genuineness of the claim or applicant?

I wasted almost another hour just for getting the approval. Fortunately I got it, because I had gone through an agent. And then it was my husband’s turn, who was in another line with the similar set of documents so we were expecting the same problem occurring again with his approval.

I saw the inspectors sitting there. There were four of them but only one was working at a time and that too he was so slow in checking that the queues hardly moved. There was a long way to go for him so I decided to wait outside till he is done. After about 45mins, he came out with approval and told that the inspector cleared his documentation without a hitch.

Why this partiality? Was it just because I am a female? It was not just me but he was bothering most of the girls for the documentation. Do they keep fewer formalities for girls? No, then why do they keep more troubles for them? Aren’t these females have enough troubles in their lives that these guys need to add something to their frustration?


To sum up we have a government who believe in only formalities, money and inhumanity and then we call India Shining. Yes, of course it is shining but with sweat and blood.