When talking about anything related to road transport, the organisation that is in most need of reform is the Motor Vehicles Department's Regional Transport Offices (RTO). These RTO offices are a heaven for corruption, a nexus of agents conniving with corrupt officials, making it almost impossible to get any task done by ordinary individuals. Be it a licence renewal, licence issuance, registration of vehicle or anything else, there is an absolute need to go via middle men and pay additional commissions to get the work done.
If you happen to land up at the RTO office on any day, you will find yourself chased by agents / middlemen from the gates of the building. And even if you manage to dodge you will find that it is almost impossible to get any job done because most of the officials inside are expecting the 'cut money's that lands up in their pockets through agents; your request / file will just not move.
Thus any attempt of reform in this sector should start from the Motor Vehicle Department itself. Today when I am needed to reissue my licence as the writings have almost faded, why should I be paying 2000 rupees for a job which is actually charged 200-300 rupees by the department; where does rest of the money land up.
There is a massive need of digitization of the RTO services to weed out any corruption. There is some promise in the form of Vahan and Sarathi portals but those just look to be the first step at digitization of the records. The need is digitization of the services something inline with Passport e-Seva which can weed out the presence of middle men and life a bit easier.
