Dealing with government paperwork can be trying at the best of times. Now, with regional transport offices (RTOs) reporting problems with their servers this past week, accessing services from the traffic commissionerate is becoming a nightmare.
And with the position of transport commissioner lying vacant for more than two years, there is no one to hold accountable for the mess.
Officials say the state’s RTOs deal with about 7,500 online applications a day—that’s roughly 27 lakh applications annually—most of which relate to the issuance of fresh licences or renewals.
The Parivahan Sarathi website, used by the state’s RTOs, is hosted by the National Informatics Centre in New Delhi for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The local traffic commissionerate has no control over how it operated.
Even if there was scope for intervention at the state level, it is likely that RTO applicants would still remain in dire straits given the lack of a traffic commissioner since IAS officer Rajesh Manju was made Principal Secretary to the Governor of Gujarat. Manju, who had served as traffic commissioner until March 21, 2022, now handles the RTOs as commissioner in-charge, an additional post.
If it wasn’t clear that anyone needing the services of the RTO is on their own, consider this: the Gandhinagar RTO, and even the traffic commissionerate itself, has no helpline number where one might lodge a complaint.