[mercedised]

Originally Posted by benbsb29

Very true. Also what about employment for those employed in these positions? Wait and watch for these things to turn political.

People will be the same it will only be the system that will change. Way of doing things will step-up from files to fully computerized, that's how corruption will be taken care of. Current breed of corrupt will be assigned new works inside a new system This is what I think they would do.

[shivshanker]

Originally Posted by blacksport

You can't just scrap the RTOs and do away with all the vehicle registrations, licence et al. There has to be an alternate authority put in place. And, that authority too is going to be manned by the same kind of people sitting in the current RTO offices. So what difference is it going to make? What we need is reforms. RTO processes should be made simpler, computerize the processing, minimize manual intervention etc.

These are just populist jibes aimed at keeping people enthused. Nothing drastic is going to happen on the ground.

RTO = Regional Transport Office.. maybe the region is being scrapped and we will get a central government run office.

Primafacie, this looks like a good move ... only time will tell.

[BeantownThinker]

Originally Posted by zenren

Question to legal experts: Isn't RTO a state government entity? If so, can Central government draft a rule and dictate how they should or should not operate?

"Mechanically propelled vehicles including the principles on which taxes on such vehicles are to be levied" is part of the Concurrent List, which means both the central and state government can legislate.

To give you an example in the current scenario, registration of vehicles conforming to emission norms are decided by Central govt and levy of various taxes are decided by the respective state govts.

After reading the newspaper article what I understood is that the functioning of the RTOs will undergo a major overhaul. The Central govt will not scrap the organisation completely but will probably re-brand it and take over its functioning from the state govts. This makes sense as many state govts bring in ridiculous requirements, for example vehicles requiring to have a yellow sticker on the headlights in Gujarat.

Although only the functioning of the RTOs are being looked at now, they should also look at making the taxes levied on motor vehicles uniform through the country and bring in one road tax for the country so that people are not harassed by local cops by way of "checking" if road tax is paid or nor for out-station vehicles.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Mr.Beat

Secondly, i have seen a sudden rise in the number of RTO's ( Some which have opened very recently MH 50+). Do they have to suddenly close down? How will the numbers be then allocated

Originally Posted by Rahul Rao

RTO's dont suddenly open. A existing RTO gets divided when their work load increases beyond a certain limit.

As Rahul already pointed out, these so-called new RTO offices don't open up all of a sudden and in most cases doesn't even involve any additional cost to the government since it is mostly redeploying part of existing workforce from RTO office to sub-RTO office.

Earlier, there would be multiple sub-RTO offices under each RTOs, where a lot of the regular tasks can be done and would have most of the lower level officials. People would need to go to the far away and/or busy parent RTO office only if that service is not offered in the sub-RTO office. With vehicle density increasing, some of these sub-RTO offices would start getting enough workload under its jurisdiction to have all functions of the RTO office to be made available there. This is typically when the sub-RTO offices get 'promoted' to regular RTO offices with separate RTO-code. Once this happens, some of the middle-level officials who used to work under the district head in the district office would be posted to these sub-RTO offices and might head that office.

If you consider the example of Kerala, it had just 14 RTO offices initially, one for each district making it KL-01 to KL-14 and KL-15 reserved for RTC. Around 2004, they promoted one sub-RTO office from each of the 3 cities to take it till KL-18. In the next phase, they decided to allocate RTO status and code for every sub-RTO office in the state, taking the count up till KL-65. Later, I think 5 more were added and the count is till KL-70 now if I'm not wrong.

Originally Posted by srishiva

So they want to scrap RTO, but there needs to be a alternative, so whats the difference. You still need some customer facing organization and they need to be in every City and Town and in many numbers.

These guys are scrapping existing things and building new things

Totally agree that some things have to be de-centralized. GOI cannot expect someone to take their 2/4-wheeler to Delhi for fitness assessment after 15 years.

I don't think the RTO offices would be closed down or scrapped as the news article suggests. It might be just that some of the current responsibilities might be taken away from them and probably some new ones added once the CMVR is revised.

[fine69]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Trying to stay as apolitical as possible but I think all the recent announcements by the new government should be taken with a pinch of salt as of now. They have just come to power and till now have only talked about changing things and a lot of them infact. All this is good for media attention and makes great news but how much of it is actually feasible or legally possible is yet to be ascertained.

Thank you! Not to be biased or anything but there was a party which started delivering on their promises the moment they came to power and now there is this party which has so far made so many promises that I have doubt whether anybody is even keeping track of what all they have promised.

Theory makes sense always, its the implementation that we are starving for. Bureaucracy has reached such levels in govt. institutions that simply saying we'll do this we'll do that isn't enough.

The govt. doesn't like RTO, please be my guest and get rid of this system and implement another robust system. But why don't you start doing something instead of simply talking about the things you are planning to do.

Notwithstanding, I have full faith in the system's bureaucracy that no matter what you do, the only change would be that one might have to pay a little more to get the job done and probably the guy responsible for taking the bribe is going to change. I'm dying for them to prove me wrong but I guess its not going to happen.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

Can't you get one fitted temporarily to get your vehicle passed and remove it later.

Yes I can. Had done it once for another motorcycle. More than doing any kind of fitness check by the officer, its about how much money are you willing to pay to get the fitness certificate. Not something I am in support of anymore.

[Live To Jive]

Another stupid move by yet another minister:
- First close down RTO's.
- Now who is going to look after registration, taxation of vehicles?
- Open a new department to do it.
Why not just revampt the RTO's. Come out with a new MV act. It does not require brains. Just copy the MV Act of Germany or France and make minor modifications. Have common rules for all states.

[gsurya]

Originally Posted by BeantownThinker

[b][i]After reading the newspaper article what I understood is that the functioning of the RTOs will undergo a major overhaul. The Central govt will not scrap the organisation completely but will probably re-brand it and take over its functioning from the state govts. This makes sense as many state govts bring in ridiculous requirements, for example vehicles requiring to have a yellow sticker on the headlights in Gujarat.

But isnt the head of that 'ridiculous requirements' Gujarat State Govt, now heading the Central Govt now

Like Criminal law, RTO rules, taxes & processes should be centrally legislated but decentralized for execution by State Govt. This would be in true federal spirit - this will require proper discussions & planning WITH the State Govts in tow, not announcing from some stage that RTOs under control of states will be scrapped!

[lancer_rit]

Originally Posted by Kamikaze

At least in Bangalore, the RTOs have improved in terms of service over the last few years. It is now within the realm of sanity to hope to get services done in time without paying bribes. However, there is no doubt that the systems are archaic and need modernization both in terms of processes and outlook.

Very true wrt Bangalore RTO. I got a new DL (old one issued in Delhi had expired when I was outside the country). Also, got IDP once for myself, and another one for my wife.
Everything was without money changing hands. Even back in 2004, I paid Road Tax when shifting my car from Delhi as per rules.
The RTO process is bureacratic and somewhat confusing to the average person, though.

[bejoy]

A good move. Though I don't believe abolishing the RTO itself is the true intent, but getting rid of a lot of bureaucracy and procedures. It will not be an easy task since the state govts are also involved. A vast amount of digitization is in place along with the consolidated database (vaahan and saarathi). The govt may be mooting for a private partnership, like they did for the passport services. The passport service is managed mainly by the TCS handling most of the process. A similar move is very much welcome. This will give a lot of transparency and a host of services that can be accessed on-line.

[g_saunak]

This is indeed a welcome change. Centralization and unified rule for the entire country is definitely going to help the common man.

The DL system must be centralized. It is amazing to see that in West Bengal different DLs are issued from different RTOs. The one which is issued from Beltala office has a chip embedded in it. Where as the one issued from Barackpore RTO is a non-chip one and carries different logo and layout. It should all be centralized and all licences should look the same with a chip card on and should mention the name of the state where it was issued. I have seen this in US.

I sincerely hope what Mr. Gadkari has said about the doorstep service regarding fine comes true. But at the same time I am afraid of it. In recent times it is a common practice in Kolkata Traffic Police to send out false tickets to complete their quota. Many of my friends have been ticketed for signal violation at places where they have never been. You try to contest one, the more hassle and harassment you will plunge into.

Also, can we have a similar road tax structure for the entire country? This will bring down the OTR prices considerably in many states and can boost the car industry a bit further. Also, let's hope that the ABS and Air Bags become mandatory in all cars.

So, not sure what happens next. But let us keep our fingers crossed and let's hope for the best.

[raghu.t.k]

I am really hoping some streamlining and enforcement will be done, to have a transparent system.

Some suggestion from my side would be :
1. Track and maintain the taxation details centrally, even if it means that the individual states maintain higher taxes. In which case only the differential is charged or refunded. If possible have just 1 tax structure across the country

2.Bring in Public - Private participation esp the vehicle manufacturers on spreading awareness and educating the public on the road rules, defensive driving and need for courtesy while being road users. This should be mandatory before taking the licence for the first time. They could also setup driving schools, which are upto standards eg Maruti driving schools.

3. Stringent, and corruption free DL evaluation and issuance, testing thoroughly on point 2, both in theory and practise.

4. Split the commercial vehicle section from the private vehicle section. This can help in providing a better user experience to the private vehicle section first while the commercial vehicle area is being cleansed of corruption. Would like to see some resemblance of the passport seva kendras.

5. Would like some accountability and punishment to the RTO officers, in the event of an accident, where the officers have overlooked or ignored the rules. This could be an ideal/Utopian state, but unless this happens, they are happy to sign on any dotted line, as long as the "greasing" is done

6. Ensure that the minimum safety norms are on par or more stringent than the developed countries. This should also include Helmets.

I really would not want them to change the period of inspection unless the corruption is routed out.

[lalittalwar]

I think it is a good move by the govt. I suggest we should not take the words literally. the RTOs cannot be done away with. I think what they are trying to do is have a centralised system like that of passport offices and PSKs. Fill the form online, take an appointment and come to the office. with documents. This does away with the agents and touts and is a clean, efficient and transparent system, and all data is online. the process to get the passports in the earlier system was a horror. now, it is not so.

[sgiitk]

Can we not have something like DVLC, Swansea which issues all registrations and licenses in the UK. The papers are generated locally, and are then sent to Swansea.

[sachinpk]

I feel that the "scrapping RTO" part needs to be taken with a pinch (or a bucket of) salt. This may be even media sensationalizing the issue.

RTO are state government departments, and the recruiting & staffing is done by the state governments. So "scrapping" of such a department cannot be just arbitrarily decided by the central government. The state governments would off course shoot down such a move. But we need to understand that many of the jobs of the RTO are based on Central Govt. Acts and rules (licensing, vehicle registration, taxes etc.).

So what the central govt. can do and enforce as well is to bring in a common system (most likely computerised) for the common activities of the RTOs across the country. So a vehicle getting registered in KL would have to use the same application, which the RTOs in KA and TN as well. And all information like vehicle numbers etc. would get registered in a central database (or in such a way that it is accessible across states). Relevant laws can be amended and state governments would have to use these tools. So what would happen is that for all core RTO activities the nation would be using one single platform. And if these are on-line, or internet/intranet based things would definitely become faster. Transferring of road taxes etc. can be made in a jiffy.

RTOs how ever might try every single trick in the book to scuttle this. When a system becomes online touts etc. would have a tough life. See what happened when railway booking was made online. Touts (and the railway officials colluding with them) lost a major source of their illegal income.

India has progressed leaps and bounds when it comes to telecommunication and internet. So any system which leverages this, and makes things automatic it would be beneficial to the common man. The current paper based system is slow, cumbersome and encourages corruption.

Came back to say: Is it true that the government is now mandating that every vehicle manufacturer updates the chassis #, engine # and other details in a central server/repository even before releasing it to dealers? If this is indeed true, the the tracking of a vehicle is happening right from the factory. And then next step would be to start tracking the vehicle when its gets sold, when it gets registered, and later when it gets involved in accidents etc.

PS: In any government organisation the main bribe taker (representing others) is the office peon. Because he physically moves the files from place to place. Make file movements be automatic, this chap would also become redundant.