One of my best friend, my bike, a Bajaj 4S bought by me in December 1992 needed a re-registration as he has turned 20. I had my bike neatly painted, changed worn out parts and made it look brand new, and he is sure sparkling and to my surprise he passed the mandatory pollution test with flying colours meaning his engine is absolutely fantastic even after 20 years at work.
Painting, changing parts, pollution test were all easy as at the best what I had to do was find a good mechanic and sure he did a good job. The next challenge is how do I get the re-registration done. The mechanic told me Sir, that is going to be difficult for you to handle, you go to a driving school they will charge around Rs.2,500 but official receipt may be only for a portion of the amount, as you know the people in Regional Transport Office (RTO) are highly corrupt and they will all take money, moreover they will make you run pillar to post and sir, you have better job to do and it is below your standard to deal with the people in RTO.
But I was adamant that I will not pay a dime extra than the official fees, so I decided I will go directly to RTO. I went into the internet read about the procedure and noted down the points. The applications were available in the internet, but I did not download, but went to a xerox shop near the RTO office one Saturday and asked them what are the forms for re-registration and address change they immediately gave me 2 forms for Rs.10 each, these forms exactly tallied with the forms found in internet by me. I brought those forms which were quite easy to fill, in fact the details in the form for re-registration were almost all copied from the RC book available with me.
It was a Wednesday morning (26.12.2012) I decided to go to the RTO. I filled up the forms had all the originals and copies as mentioned in the form. I was at the RTO sharp at 10am. There was an enquiry counter, I asked them what to do? He looked at my completed forms, Oh! this looks good pay the fees and come. So I went into the queue for payment of fees where another 2 people were in front of me. I waited for about 10 minutes when my turn came the cashier looked at me surprisingly and looked at my form turning all the pages. Then he asked me a question Sir, did you pay the taxes? I said my bike is under Life Time Tax and now I have to pay only Rs.500 towards Green Tax, he looked at me puzzled, because he became aware that he cannot take me for a ride as I new something of the procedure. He quickly typed the details on his computer and said this will cost you Rs.630, Rs.500 for Green Tax, Rs.100 for Address Change and Rs.30 for service charge. I said fine and paid the fees. He gave me 4 challans. Three of the challans I have to staple in my RC book and one is my copy, which I did and had it checked with a gentleman standing there who is from a driving school and doing this job for ages. I again went to the enquiry counter and showed him my payment challans, he said sir, the inspector will come and inspect your vehicle around 12 noon as currently he doing the LLR licence now, you wait near such and such spot. The time then was 10.30 am. Being a doubting Thomas myself I thought it appropriate to check with the inspector himself because if I wait till 12 noon and the inspector did not turn up what to do? So I went up to the inspector room it was fully crowded with LLR applicants and the inspector was busy checking their papers. One good thing was there was a queue, so I joined the queue at the end, and when my turn came I told the inspector why I came for, he looked at me and said sir this is queue for LLR you go and wait near your bike I will come around 12 noon. Now I was happy that I have the confirmation.
In the queue for verification by Inspector there were all new vehicles and had the company representatives (bike dealer representatives), I was the odd man out because I had an old vehicle and I am the owner. To my surprise the Inspector was at the inspection place around 11.30 am, first he was inspecting the vans / buses for their re-registration, when the turn for bikes came mine was around 6th in the queue. He came to my bike looked at me and had a small smile in the face asked me for the papers and I gave him all. He checked my application, the annexures, original Registration book, checked the Engine Number, Chassis number, and nodded in satisfaction. He then turned the page in my application to the space where he needed to sign and signed it. He returned the application to me and said Sir, give it to the enquiry counter and they will do the needful, your re-registration is over, he moved on to the next vehicle. I thanked him and pushed my vehicle out of that place and when I was about 20 metres away one of the dealer representative who had a new bike for registration walked up to me and asked rather slowly "Sir, how much did you pay the Inspector for this?", I said "I paid the fees at the counter". "No Sir, I understand but how much to the Inspector"? I said "nothing, so what"? He looked puzzled. I just left him there staring at me, and moved away to the enquiry counter, where I handed over the application and original RC book. The officer there looked at the Inspector's sign and smiled back again, sir come on friday and collect the RC book. It was over, and the time was 12.30pm.
Honestly this is not the first time I did this, in fact this is the 4th time with the RTO I had this experience, once for renewal of my licence, once for my wife licence address change and once for my bike re-registration after 15 years. In fact for all the 4 times I did not pay a paise more than the official fees, but I spent half a day everytime, but I was really proud that even though I spent my time I did not pay anything extra. Same goes to the passport office, I did not have an agent for my passport, I applied online and I went into the queue and got the verification done, paid the fees and came out, passport came to me in 2 weeks.
You can ask me why I am writing all this, I would request you all to contribute in a small way to avoid corruption. What you have to do is quite simple and the following are the steps when you deal with Government departments.
- Read and understand the procedures to be followed clearly, so that nobody tries to outsmart you. If people find out that you are not aware of the procedures they will surely take you for a ride and it will cost you money.
- Fill up the forms yourself and have the annexures done yourself - believe me this is not Rocket Science, we are so used to signing at the places marked "x" by the agent and allowing him to do everything please avoid it as much as possible
- "Do it Yourself" - we have a common excuse "No time". I do not believe this, we have to create time, when we can take holiday for our wife birthday, wedding day, children birthday I am sure we can take holiday for these reasons also as it an important matter concerning our society
My humble request to you all, let's stop complaining "people in Government departments are corrupt and nothing moves without Vitamin-M". To put it bluntly we are the reason for this, we do not want to "bend our back" we want an easy way out, which is through paying money we get our work done. Corruption happens because we want it to happen, if every individual in this country takes responsibility for his tasks I am sure we can avoid corruption. This is easy to say and I am sure easy to follow.
Jai Hind. Let us make India corruption free
