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RSTA taking the driver’s seat

4 July 2008

Really, no kidding, there really is a government organisation that is cutting down on red tape. The Road Safety Transportation Authority (RSTA) is working on many plans, one of which is decentralising the licensing process so that it may issue licenses with minimal fuss. Earlier, the licensing process was widely known to frustrate applicants throughout the country. It was routed through base offices to the head office in Thimphu and then to the printers, all of which took about a month in Thimphu and over a couple of months in other dzongkhags.

New license making machines will be distributed in four regions, Phuentsholing, Samdrup Jongkhar, Gelephu and Thimphu as soon as they arrive in a few weeks’ time. The machines are expected to be put into operation sometime in August.

“Subject to their performance, the new machines at the regional offices will make licensing a mere week-long process but we will still try to bring it down to three days,” said Karma Pemba, RSTA’s senior transport officer in Thimphu.

According to the RSTA, this plan had been conceived some time ago but had been shelved for want of funds. Now, with a substantial budget finally allocated, it was seeing the light of day.

The RSTA has distributed questionnaires on the decentralised licensing process to regions and will receive the responses by the end of this month. Then, after introducing the machines, a follow up survey will be done to make comparisons and to study differences. The RSTA initiative will not stop there. Additional reforms in the pipeline, it is intended, will cut through red tape and take services ‘closer’ to the customers.

An average of 200 people a day step into the RSTA office. The officiating director, Harka S Tamang, said that “time was money” for both his organisation and the public and it was now time to improve, one step at a time. As of May this year, there were 37,596 automobile owners in the country, he said. Taking that into consideration, the RSTA must explore hitherto untouched avenues to make official procedures convenient for the people. “Our long term plans are to upgrade our use of technology, such as IT,” said Karma Pemba. “That will make it difficult for anybody to manipulate our system of operation.”

These sweeping changes include doing away with the registered certificate book and altering it into a card, as well as reducing the penalty for renewal of registered certificate, which is a fine of Nu 100 per day, to just Nu 10 per day.

“We are trying to tie up the renewal and fitness test together so that people don’t have to come twice. We already do that for new vehicles but old vehicles will have to wait till we sort out the gaps (between the renewal time and the fitness time),” said Karma Pemba.

The RSTA also plans on setting up information desks to help clients in all of its regional offices. “In spite of many constraints, we are managing and the RCSC has been kind enough to recruit more people for us,” said Harka S Tamang.

Additionally, the Mongar base office is to be upgraded into a regional office within the 10th Year Plan and there are plans to set up base offices at Dagana, Punakha and Lhuentse. These works have been given government approval and will commence soon.

The RSTA is striving to make the road ahead a smooth and seamless journey for both itself and the public.

By Tashi Wangmo

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