Suspended DTO issues driving licences
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, October 12 2012: Even after being placed under suspension, a former District Transport Officer (DTO) of Ukhrul district continued issuing driving licences.

Though it requires residential certificate, medical fitness certificate, age-proof certificate, blood group certificate and passport photographs to obtain a driving licence, two passport photographs and a plain paper having the name and address of the applicant are enough to obtain driving licence from the particular DTO.

An official in Transport Department disclosed that Ukhrul DTO was suspended from service on June 2 this year.

Even after suspension, the DTO continued issuing driving licences while staying at his home located within Imphal Municipal Council area without doing any kind of verification.

One of the many licenses issued by the suspended DTO Ukhrul

All the driving licences issued by the DTO after his suspension have one common date of issuance, that is June 2, 2012 which is also the date on which he was suspended.

In May, a month ahead of his suspension, the latest driving licence number was 35,000 but it reached 53,406 when a new driving licence was made on October 9 .

This clearly indicated that the DTO issued more than 15,000 driving licences after he was placed under suspension.

To obtain driving licence from the DTO, applicants usually paid Rs 500 to the person who would take him/her to the suspended DTO.

The middleman would keep Rs 300 for himself and the remaining Rs 200 would be given to the DTO.

On the average, the DTO made more than 50 driving licences in a day.

Excepting Ukhrul and Senapati districts, applicants seeking driving licences for two-wheelers and light four-wheelers are treated as learners for six months which means people learning to ride/drive vehicles.

To be enlisted as learners, one must submit medical certificate, age-proof certificate, residential certificate, blood group certificate and passport photographs.

As a rule, the applicants must approach a DTO after six months for their driving licences.

The DTO would then refer the matter to an Inspector.

Based on the Inspector's report, driving licences would be issued in the form smart cards.

However, as smart cards have not be introduced in the districts of Senapati and Ukhrul, driving licences are issued in the form of booklets.

Those people who did not want to follow all the procedures of obtaining smart cards were apparently obtaining driving licences from the DTO.

Even though the Transport Department is fully aware of the suspended DTO's activities, the department only remains a mute spectator, said the official.

There were also cases when driving licences were obtained by manipulating dates of issuance to earlier dates after those who did not possess driving licences met with road accidents.

This is only increasing the cases of road accidents, added the official.