Women’s counter at RTO is a big relief

At the Sarai Kale Khan RTO, a board reads “GOOD NEWS - Special counter for women applicants”. It is a calm, well lit, organised, grid of an office — a far cry from the pandemonium of 1995 and 2015.

They say “know where you have come from to know where you are going”. This clearly did not apply when I applied for a driver’s licence at Sheikh Sarai RTO 23 years ago.

The women’s counter at Sarai Kale Khan RTO in New Delhi. (Burhaan Kinu/HT Photo)

With no idea where to start and how to go about the paperwork, I found help in a tout who offered to get me “ready” for a small price. I followed his instructions — “look here”, “read that”, “drive this”, “show sign”, “sign here” —like a baby chimpanzee and earned my licence. The tout congratulated me and produced a bill of Rs 1,500, which, back then, was a heck a lot of money.

It’s been three years since that licence expired, and a failed attempt at getting a new one in 2015 left me completely disappointed.

The degree of chaos I had witnessed then is still fresh. A dark, dingy and crowded Sheikh Sarai RTO, with many queues, queues with people fighting, queues without purpose, queues with purpose at closed counters, no women’s counter, no women. You get the picture.

But in 2018, I decided to give it another go.

DAY1

I arrived at 9:15 am at the Sarai Kale Khan RTO.

At the office, a board read “GOOD NEWS - Special counter for women applicants”. A calm, well lit, organised, grid of an office greeted me— a far cry from the pandemonium of 1995 and 2015.

There were prominent counters, definite start and end points to queues, clear signboards, people weren’t fighting and as declared earlier the “women’s counter”.

There were multiple enquiry counters (women can use both types of counters — special and general) and uniformed officers guiding applicants.

One such counter informed me that I needed to take an online appointment only after which processing could begin.

I had not applied for one and was directed to another counter where an officer assisted me to fill the online application.

Suddenly witnessing such clarity in a government office made me feel like Alice in “Alice in Wonderland”, everyone knew what I needed to do except me, quite like last time but just that I needn’t slay the Jabberbabywocky but fill in an online form.

The website https://parivahan.gov.in is ergonomically designed. It is self-explanatory and took 20 minutes to fill and pay the fee of Rs 500. Appointment for the next day at 10:46 am.

DAY 2

At the appointed hour, I stood in the queue at the women’s counter, annoyed that I could have saved a day if I had filled in the online form earlier.

The RTO was very serious about the discipline at the women’s counter and an officer softly but surely redirected the men off. When a male relative of a candidate tried to lend what can only be assumed to be moral support, he was asked to step aside.

My documents were verified, biometrics recorded and photo shot at the same counter. Then came the online theory test. I also underwent an Ishihara test to check for colour blindness and then headed for my test.

I logged in by entering my application ID. The multiple choice format paper contained a set of 10 questions pertaining to traffic rules and regulations with time limit of a minute per question.

GUIDE FOR LICENCE APPLICANTS

Fill details

One needs to fill this document online, make sure the spelling of your name is consistent with other legal documents such as Aadhaar, voter’s card, or PAN card.

Upload documents

To upload documents, all prerequisite information regarding document type, size and dimensions etc are mentioned next to the link.

Upload photograph and signature

A scanned copy of recent photograph and signature must be uploaded to be able to book an online appointment.

Test slot booking

The are different time slots available for the online theory test, one can select accordingly and need appear for the test.

Payment of Fee

The website takes all electronic payments. the application fee for a New driving licence is Rs 500.

The results are declared at the end of the test revealing if you have passed or failed. Fair warning - The online test is not tough but tricky, a certain preparation is required before taking the online test as failing this will require you to come back and appear till you pass.

And voila! I did pass and my learner’s licence was issued. It will be valid for six months. In a month’s time, I can apply for the permanent licence and for that I need to appear for the practical driving test.

It was thoughtful of the authorities to have simplified the processes to the extent that it eliminated the middleman.

The process from submitting the printed form to procuring the learner’s driving licence took me only 35 minutes.

There was, however, no training, which is a pity considering how random traffic can be on Delhi roads, which is also well known for road rage. While it has been reported that there would be awareness programmes to improve compliance of traffic rules in the city, there was none at the time I had applied for my learner’s permit. Perhaps a half-hour training would be a good idea to be taken up by the traffic department.