Telangana: 40,000 vehicles cannot get their registration done

Hyderabad: The Road Transport Authority (RTA) claims one or other reason for the delay in issuing of Licences and Registration certificates. After the cards shortage in the department which continued for months, now it is ribbon shortage that is haunting riders to get certificates or they are forced to get their vehicles on the road sans certificates.

According to data from the Telangana Transport Authority, there are around 40,000 vehicles yet to get their certification done and the numbers are piling up since the last couple of weeks. On an average, more than 3,000 vehicles are being registered on a daily basis, which comprises two-wheelers and four-wheelers across Telangana state and it ranges between 90,000 to 1,00,000 per month.

Mr K. Srikanth Reddy, an IT employee at Hitech city, who bought his new bike two months ago is still waiting for his licence.  Though he has finished all formalities he has not received his card. Riders lament that many a time, because of the delay from the department, they are getting caught by the traffic police and are forced to pay challans due to lack of proper documents.

There has also been a spate of complaints in the online forums regarding the delay of services and the troubles that the consumers are facing. 

Mr Edward Ajth, posted online that “I have applied for the Registration Certificate of my bike. It’s been five months now but still have not received my RC book. I kept sending emails to support@tstransport.in,  I received a response  only once, that the card had been printed and was ready to be dispatched.  Will it take 4 months for the card to be dispatched? I still have not received the RC book.  How many months or years will it take? I have not gone through a broker. I went as per the government rules. Is this the way Telangana government works? How will the country develop if the government is like this?”

When contacted the Road Transport Authority, Joint Transport commissioner,  C. Ramesh said, “There has been a shortage of ribbons, which are usually imported, used for the printing process, since the last couple of weeks. We are working on this issue and will be resolving it in a week and there won’t be any problem.” Earlier, there was a card shortage but now that has been resolved.

The licence cards are preferably sent to the owners through the post and the user has to pay Rs 35 extra towards the postal charges. One of the officials from the transport department, on condition of anonymity, said that though in some cases, licences were being dispatched from the office, the postal department caused the delay.