Mysuru: The presence of a lot of touts (agents) at the Regional Transport Offices (RTO) in city is causing a lot of problems to the people visiting it to get their work done, alleged citizens at a meeting of Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP).

At the meeting held here on Sunday at the MGP office in Yadavagiri on the subject ‘Problems at RTO,’ a member of the MGP brought up this issue for discussion. He asked what steps were being taken to the nuisance created by the touts at the RTO, which is increasing by the day.

Reacting to the question, RTO Superintendent Shivaprasad urged the members and the public not to have any doubt regarding the service provided or duties discharged by the staff.

“I have been serving the Department since the last 33 years in different districts. I do not have a single black mark during my tenure so far. There is shortage of staff in the Department while the number of people visiting the office has gone up enormously. Hence, there is delay in providing service. Even then under SAKAL, all the applications are being addressed within the time frame,” he said.

He charged that a few people do not produce proper documents and hence approach the touts. The touts who make use of the situation, cheat the people. But all these things happen outside the office premises. The public should come forward and complain to the Police about such irregularities, he advised.

“We are helpless in controlling touts and this complaint is nothing new as the people have been discussing about this problem since several years. If we have to put a stop to this practice then it is important to create awareness among the public,” he said.

Shivaprasad said that the public should directly approach the officers concerned with their doubts instead of going to the touts. Instead, for every small incident it is not good to blow it up and start blaming the whole system.

There were more than 20 suggestions from the members to the RTO including licence cancellation, road safety week, to train the boys and girls who apply for new Driving Licences on road signals and checking the documents of old vehicles.

RTO Officer Deepak, MGP Working President Prof. S. Shobana, Srimathi Hariprasad, Dr. T.N. Manjunath, M. Jayaram, K.S. Umakanth, P.M. Bhat, Prof. V. Jagannath, M. Janaki Raman, H.R. Balakrishna, Asif Ali Khan, B.S. Shankar, K.N. Radhakrishna, H.T. Prakash, U.B. Acharya, M. Arjun, Arunkumar, N. Gangaprasad, C.R. Aswath Narayan, K.R. Seshadri, K.R. Vaidyanathan and M. Suma were present.

MGP suggestions to RTO Officers

• Create more awareness about online facilities in RTO.
• Conduct awareness programmes in schools and colleges about road safety and road rules.
• Take stringent action against air and noise polluting vehicles.
• Take all precautions not to issue licence to students who have not attained the age of 18.
• Take action against drivers violating traffic rules and respond to the letters of the Traffic Police to the Road Transport Department regarding violations, so that both Departments can work in tandem.
• Open separate counters for senior citizens.
• Ask public to co-operate with the MGP in its study regarding traffic in Mysuru.