Pune: The Regional Transport Office (RTO) has decided to reduce the waiting period of 15 days for applicants waiting for a four-wheeler permanent licence, said Ajit Shinde, Regional Transport Officer of Pune. At present, the waiting period is around 30 days.
The RTO is opening Phulenagar test track from October 18 (Monday). The applicants can take appointment from Sunday onwards. Also, the quota for two-wheelers will be increased and applicants will not have to wait.
As per Shinde, at present, the driving test for issuing a permanent licence is conducted at the Institute for Driving Training and Research (IDTR), Bhosari. The daily processing capacity there for four-wheelers is 320.
“Although we need higher capacity, as the flow of applications is more, we can’t increase the capacity here. To deal with this issue, we have decided to re-open our old Phulenagar testing track. This will increase the capacity and will bring down the waiting period by a few weeks,” said Shinde.
“With the additional capacity, the total number of people taking driving tests for two-wheelers at Pune RTO will be 400 per day and for four-wheelers, it will be 480 per day,” he said.
The waiting period to take the driving test had gone up considerably last year owing to a staff crunch caused by the suspension of the RTO staffers by the court. In September 2018, following a Bombay High Court order, the Transport Department had suspended 37 RTO inspectors. Out of this, 17 were from Pune.
