- Bribe Fighter
- 13 years ago
- 2221 views
Information is power
There is no denying the fact that there corruption and the culture of bribing or ‘enablement fee’ as I would like to call it is rampant in India. And many a times this is due to the unavailability of correct and detailed information on how to obtain a particular service from our government.
My driving licence issued in Kolkata was expiring and I had to either get it renewed in Kolkata or get a fresh one in Chennai starting with a learners license. I enquired with a few friends on how to go about it and believe me, all of them had gone through an agent and advised me to do the same. I placed a word with a few friends and soon I was contacted by an ‘agent’. We could not agree to the terms and conditions as he did not have a permanent office where I could get hold of him and I could not agree to make the full payment upfront (because of the same reason mentioned above).
I was back to square one and decided to go onto the internet and figure out what had to be done. Apart from a some sketchy information on what had to be done, I got some more advice on getting it done through an agent / driving school. Anyway’s atleast I got a list of documents that were required, a form and the RTO office that I could go to.
I filled up the form and went over to the RTO office the following Saturday. I bungled my way through (anxious at times as I don’t know any Tamil and worried whether I was getting the right answers or if was in the right line) and made the payment for the Learners Licence, took the knowledge test, a month later (that the waiting time between a learners license and road test) took the road test and three days after that I got my License.
Where is the Bribe that I didn’t have to pay?
Well, we all need to stand in a queue to pay the learner’s license fee and to pay the Driving License fee. For every application that is processed through this queue a dozen others are processed behind the scenes – this is where the bribe money comes in.
How can we put a stop to this?
If only the entire process is available on the relevant website (the RTO’s website in this case), I am sure a good number of us would be enabled and would not need to pay an enablement fee (bribe).
Best *******