11L duplicate licences issued in 5 yrs

[karira]

As reported by Viju B of TNN in timesofindia.indiatimes.com on 7 July 2008:
11L duplicate licences issued in 5 yrs-Mumbai-Cities-The Times of India

11L duplicate licences issued in 5 yrs

MUMBAI: When the traffic police arrested truck driver Ram N Yadav recently for mowing down three people beneath a flyover at Borivli, they stumbled upon something that shook them out of their wits. Yadav was found with eight licences issued by the Andheri RTO (regional transport office).

A habitual offender, he even boasted to the cops that he would never break a sweat whenever the traffic cops would confiscate his licence for not paying the fine as he invariably had a number of other licences with him.

Yadav's case is only the tip of the iceberg. The three RTOs at Mumbai Central, Wadala and Andheri, which are the nodal license issuing authorities for city motorists, have failed to check the background of applicants while issuing duplicate licences.

This free-for-all issuance of licences has rendered the year-long anti-drunken driving campaign initiated by the traffic police department almost ineffective.

Figures show that on an average, RTOs in Mumbai issued one duplicate licence for every new licence issued in the last five years.

The three RTOs issued 11.12 lakh duplicate licences in the past five years, while they issued 12.12 lakh new licences in the same period.

"This effectively means that Mumbaikars lose 609 licences every day, which looks more like a Ripley's believe-it-or-not factoid," says Chetan Kothari who filed an RTI query on this issue.

On Saturday, when TOI visited various driving schools in south Mumbai and central Mumbai, the figures proved to be quite accurate. Driving schools in these areas said they were willing to provide a duplicate licence for a fee of Rs 300-400. Some even said that they only needed the name of the licence-holder and the year when the licence was issued along with a signature on an application form. "Hum log ka setting hain udhar (We have an understanding with the RTO), ‘' said the manager of a driving school at Dongri.

This inexpensive, albeit illegal method is luring thousands of traffic offenders to procure a duplicate licence rather than collect the confiscated licences from the traffic police headquarter by paying up the penalty of Rs 1,000.

Senior officials at the RTOs have for the first time admitted that this an alarming situation and things have gone out of control. "It is shocking that applicants can procure duplicate licence with ease and get away with the traffic offences they have committed," Vikas Pandkar, regional transport officer, Andheri, said.

Pandkar has reasons to worry as RTO, Andheri, for instance, issued 4.4 lakh duplicate licences in 2007 while it issued 6.05 lakh new licences in the same period. On an average, over the last five years, nearly 50% of the total number of licences issued in the last five years were duplicate licences.

"We need to tackle the issue urgently. I will write to the transport department to bring in stringent measures for issuing duplicate licences," Pandkar said.

Meanwhile, the figures from the two other RTOs in the city were even more shocking. While the RTO at Mumbai Central issued 4.2 lakh duplicate licences, the office issued only 3.7 lakh new licences in the same period.

Similarly, the RTO at Wadala issued 2.6 lakh duplicate licences last year while in the same period the office issued only 2.3 lakh new licences.

Ramanath Jha, principal secretary (transport) told TOI that tings would improve only when the data of old licence holders was updated.

"The interconnectivity of various RTOs need to be upgraded. That will improve the situation greatly," Jha said. He also said once the data sent by the traffic police department to the various RTOs are more streamlined then the applications of duplicate licence holders who have committed offences can be held back.

Officials admit that many motorists today have more than three to four duplicate licences so that in case they are caught by the traffic cops they can surrender their original licence and still drive their vehicles. "There is a need for stringent tracking of these applications, otherwise the entire anti-drunken driving campaign may fizzle out," a senior traffic police official warned.