After the transport commissioner sent a ‘red inked letter’ to all Regional Transport Officers in the state asking them tersely to make transport offices 'tout free', officials have got their act together, and on Monday debarred agents from RTO premises. And taking umbrage at the decision, touts held a protest-of-sort at the entrance gate.
After the transport commissioner sent a ‘red inked letter’ to all Regional Transport Officers in the state asking them tersely to make transport offices 'tout free', officials have got their act together, and on Monday debarred agents from RTO premises. And taking umbrage at the decision, touts held a protest-of-sort at the entrance gate.
“There were very few people at the RTO today, as agents usually get the work done on behalf of applicants. They do not even come to our offices,” said an RTO officer from Wadala RTO.
The idea behind denying touts entry is to make RTO-related works more people friendly and to bring in more transparency in the day-to-day work. This would also help cut down on corruption.
“On the first day (of the decision), issuance of driving licences was not affected because of the online process. On an average, we receive 250 to 260 applications on a day. On Monday too, that was the case,” said PG Bhalerao, RTO (Andheri West).
However, work was affected! Those related to permits, getting duplicate registration certificate of vehicles, etc came to a standstill. Not all automobile dealers succeeded in getting new vehicles registered and delivered on time to customers. Some taxi and auto rickshaws who had brought their vehicles however got their work done.
Agents in the meanwhile, claimed they were just liaising between the public and the authorities to get work done in a trouble-free manner. The overall sentiment was to protest the move to disallow their entry by going on a strike, like the one on Monday.
A Tardeo RTO official said to keep touts at bay and to assist the public, RTOs would need to divert a substantial number of their staff from their daily work. “What we are facing are initial issues before things get streamlined,” he added.
What is to be observed is how long RTOs will be able to keep touts at bay. Haven't they a reputation for bouncing back?
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