Comment Piece | Driving Your Money Away
International driver's licence is a complimentary document attached to Original driving licence that allows a person to drive motor vehicles in other countries. If you intend to drive during your stint abroad, do make sure that you get yourself this permit. But, before that, you’ll have to prepare yourself to part with a few hundred rupees to oil the machinery of your local RTO.
An example of this would be a case of an individual from Kanpur who was made to run from pillar to post. RTO officials were being elusive and ignored his application, demanding documents such as ‘eye sight report’. As soon as a bribe of Rs.3500 was paid to an official, they walked the complainant through the whole process and issued the licence within 24 hours.
In another case, a woman from Nalgonda (Andhra Pradesh) attempted to procure the licence by her own means but faced disappointment when an official at the RTO ‘enlightened’ her on how government procedures could be completed only after paying a bribe! A sum of Rs.2000 exchanged hands and voila! Her licence was delivered to her by evening.
In yet another case, regulations were twisted to meet the whims and fancies of these officials of Pondicherry. They demanded a list of unnecessary documents to procure an international drivers permit.