The Transport Department's decision to go cashless in a bid to reduce corruption is a step in the right direction even if long overdue. Being one of the departments most notorious for red tape and corruption such news sounds too good to be true.
To bring you up to speed, Director of Transport has said that several reforms will be undertaken in the transport department including an ‘Automated Driving Test Track where licences will be given on merit and not on whims and fancies of our officers' for which a "proposal is under consideration" while also informing that "in the next few days, we will cease cash transactions by installing credit and debit card point of sale machines in all offices."
For one, the central and state government may have been promoting going cashless for close to a year now, but very few of their own departments have implemented it. That they are finally getting their act together, however belatedly, is good news.
However, to check your enthusiasm a bit, it must be remembered that Desai has made this statement on record to a licence seeker who appealed against a Motor Vehicle Inspector's refusal to conduct a driving test in a private vehicle and insisted that the driving test must be conducted in a driving school vehicle ostensibly because those vehicles have ‘dual control'.
But that's besides the point. The question here is, how serious is the transport department about implementing these reforms and how quickly.
Automation removes discretion entirely and with discretion being the mother of corruption, the less discretion in the hands of officials the lesser possibility of corruption.
Automation can also check how well the driving school has taught you. Currently, driving schools have a monopoly, with the RTO authorities mandating that all learners need to pass through a registered school before they can appear for a test. This was ostensibly to ensure that drivers are well taught before they can obtain a licence.
However, this has proven to be counter productive. Rather than that, driving schools rarely teach the learners the rules of traffic and only teach them control of the vehicle, confident that the ‘inside connection' with the RTO inspector will ensure that their wards get a licence. Driving is much more than that.
One hopes that an automated driving track will test learners whether they know they have to stop before a zebra crossing, that one needs to give way to traffic while entering a main road, and that at a traffic circle those already in the circle have to be given preference.
Let the transport department prove that our optimism is not misplaced. The present system is in urgent need of an overhaul.
To bring you up to speed, Director of Transport has said that several reforms will be undertaken in the transport department including an ‘Automated Driving Test Track where licences will be given on merit and not on whims and fancies of our officers' for which a "proposal is under consideration" while also informing that "in the next few days, we will cease cash transactions by installing credit and debit card point of sale machines in all offices."
For one, the central and state government may have been promoting going cashless for close to a year now, but very few of their own departments have implemented it. That they are finally getting their act together, however belatedly, is good news.
However, to check your enthusiasm a bit, it must be remembered that Desai has made this statement on record to a licence seeker who appealed against a Motor Vehicle Inspector's refusal to conduct a driving test in a private vehicle and insisted that the driving test must be conducted in a driving school vehicle ostensibly because those vehicles have ‘dual control'.
But that's besides the point. The question here is, how serious is the transport department about implementing these reforms and how quickly.
Automation removes discretion entirely and with discretion being the mother of corruption, the less discretion in the hands of officials the lesser possibility of corruption.
Automation can also check how well the driving school has taught you. Currently, driving schools have a monopoly, with the RTO authorities mandating that all learners need to pass through a registered school before they can appear for a test. This was ostensibly to ensure that drivers are well taught before they can obtain a licence.
However, this has proven to be counter productive. Rather than that, driving schools rarely teach the learners the rules of traffic and only teach them control of the vehicle, confident that the ‘inside connection' with the RTO inspector will ensure that their wards get a licence. Driving is much more than that.
One hopes that an automated driving track will test learners whether they know they have to stop before a zebra crossing, that one needs to give way to traffic while entering a main road, and that at a traffic circle those already in the circle have to be given preference.
Let the transport department prove that our optimism is not misplaced. The present system is in urgent need of an overhaul.
