There has been a lot of talk going on about Smart Cards replacing the Book system for Driving License and Vehicle registration books. Which should imply that the system has been computerized or automatized, reducing the response time from the RTO end. Tat’s all just for the telling. They still have loads of manual processes, loads of legacy files stacked, but one can see desktops with TFTs monitors and the operators doing the data entry jobs. Today I had to wait for almost 12 hours before I could get the Speed post tracking number for the Smart card they had sent to the postal address. How did they finally get the number? The person concerned got huge set of files- may be around 15, got a register and did a lookup operation in the register to find out the corresponding Speed post file for the given Vehicle registration number. Then he scrambled with those files before writing down the Tracking Number on a piece of paper. It doesn’t end there – They arent in a position to tell where the envelope, containing the smart card, is- Is it with them or with the Post office. So I had to run to the post office, where they took just minutes to tell me that the the envelope is returned to the sender- thanks to their tracking application. Now RTO wants the proof that its with them- can u believe that- they dont keep a track of the inventory they have. What’s the automation system doing there? And moreover to search if the Smart card is with the RTO they have a Notepad, which is in a very bad condition due to constant lookup, where they write down the registration numbers of vehicle’s whose smart cards they have. Isnt it archaic?