Driving License Renewal is Easy

I promised my friend that I will write a blog post talking about my experience of driving license renewal process. Here is my experience:

Easy and Online, you can do it yourself with some preparation !

Since driving license renewal involves an Govt. agency called as RTO (Regional/Road Transport Office) with its reputation for depressing offices and un-helpful staff. Naturally anyone would shudder at the thought of visiting the RTO office and getting something done in a single visit.

Good News 

As citizens expectations change,  government is bound to change, there is a begining of seismic shift (परिवर्तन) in the some govt. departments responsible for direct services to citizens. RTO  is one such department. The process is now well defined (standard operating procedure / SOP) and partially online. It means you can now initiate the service request from comfort of your home using your desktop/laptop/smartphone.

I will talk about mobile App later. First let's use online service call SARATHI. Gone are the days when govt. websites consisted cyptic acronyms. Since it offers driver related services, sanskrit word for driver 'SARATHI' is very apt name to refer to the website that offers various online services.

SARATHI is for Driving Licenses and of compiling the data with respect to Vehicle Registration and Driving Licenses of all the states in State Register and National Register

Here is starting point for you:

 https://sarathi.parivahan.gov.in

To navigate the website with ease and avoid confusion, all you need to understand is that you can Apply Online for two categories of services.

1. Application for a new driving license (DL)
2. Application for various services related to an existing driving license (DL)

Click Apply Online

Click Apply Online to see links to all services. Notice Upload documents and Fee payment links, they are useful if you partially complete the process and want to come back later to do the rest of the steps.

DL Renewal

Click on the appropriate link, for example for driving license renewal, click on Services on Driving License link. You should expect few instructions and later a form to filled, starting with your existing DL number.

This is a dumb form, no artificial intelligence (AI) here. So you need to format your DL number properly, examples:

Your DL No:RJ14 /0001234/2017 then type as RJ14'SPACE'/0001234/2017

Your DL No:MH01 20170001234   then type as MH01'SPACE'20170001234

Where 'SPACE' means press SPACE button on your keyboard.

Click on GO button and pray to database god. Why? To proceed futher your DL number and record related to it must exists in the "central" database. If it is found then all DL related fetched and displayed to you. Congratulations, thank database god !

Chicken and Egg 

If your DL record is not present in the database, you will get this error message.

Too bad

Now we have proverbial Chicken and Egg situation. Unless DL record is in the central database, any service related to the DL cannot be requested, including service to add DL record in the central database (in ideal world and perfect government it should be possible).

Good news is all you need to do is visit RTO office that issued your current DL and request them to bring it online i.e. add record to the database. Cost of doing this : Rs. 20. Time taken: in  a day. In my case, I had to visit Sangli RTO, place where I did my engineering and got DL in the final year.

You can leave 

There is another reason you will have to visit RTO office of your current DL, which is if you current address (which you want on your new DL) belongs to a different RTO. Then it is "you can check in anytime but you can never leave, unless your host RTO gives you no objection certification". Can I request for NOC online? Of course yes, it is just another service related to your existing DL.

Good To Go

At this point, you have you DL record in the database and you are ready to create application and choose one or more services that you want. From here on it is very intuitive. In fact once application is created, an application number is created, note it down. You can come back anytime later to complete other steps like Upload document against the your application number.

Following is summary of steps in general:

1. Create an application containing service request details.

2. Upload documents (black-white scanned copies)

After application number is successfully created, you can uploaded scanned/soft copies of relevant documents at your convenience, no pressure, no session time out.

3. Payment of fees (First check your Netbanking is working)

4. Printout of full application form and payment receipt

5. Physical visit to RTO office (in some cases in appoint slot, else between 10 AM to 2 PM) to submit printed application

6. Get Biometic done at RTO office (you will find out what it is)

7. Submit printed application after biometric done

8. Done, you have climbed the Mt. Everest, now take some rest ! You will get new DL after by post in two weeks.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail

Address Proof
Your need to prepare scanned copies of various documents. I will mention two important ones. First is address proof, acceptable documents include. Aadhar card with DOB on it, LIC policy, Voter ID card, or Passport surprising does not include electricity bill.
Medical Certificate
The other importat document could be appear daunting. It is medical certificate aka Form 1A to be filled by Govt. approved doctor. Too bad they do not have this form to under Download Forms section, but it is available on the Internet on some other govt. website. Now where do you find Govt. approved doctor. Any reputated GP in your area will do, they are familiar with the form, you need to provide them your blood group. For those in Blue Ridge township, doctors at Hinjewadi Hospital should be able to provide the medical certificate.
Passport Size Photos
Government loves you, so keep enough passport size photos.

Important Tips

RTO Office

Visit Know your RTO table to find out which RTO is responsible for area of your present/permanent address, which you plan to use for your new DL.
For example: Blue Ridge Township would be under area "Infotech Park (Hinjawadi)", which comes under Pimpri-Chichwad RTO with its office located on Chikhali Road.

RTO Look Up Table

For your current DL, RTO office should be mentioned on it.

RTO Office Timings
Second and Fourth Saturdays RTO offices will be closed. On working days, time to accept applications is between 10 AM to 2 PM.

DL expiry
You can apply for reneway within a month of expiry of your current DL. You will have to explain why you waited till DL expired (out of country?).

Mobile App
I believe you should be able to do all of above process using mobile app too. Give it try:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nic.mparivahan&hl=en_IN

Final Comments

After all is done you will actually feel that process is too easy. Why didn't they test my driving skills and rules awareness once again? With so many lives lost every year on road, DL should be issued only to those who give first priority to SAFETY. You do not want any of your loved ones hit by some reckless driver. Think about it ...

Why Product Management

Just back from very enlightening workshop on product management by Institute of Product Leadership. What did I learn there?

Before I begin I felt that for any discussion on product management to make sense, one better mention first if the product is for enterprise customers (B2B) or for consumers (B2C). I believe role of product manager is somewhat different in these 2 cases. Here I assume products for enterprise customers.

Beginnings 

You start with customers pain areas. Is there any unsolved problem that a customer and lot of other people like the customer are facing? Are they losing time in certain processes, do they lack tools that could help them make better decisions (Example: lots of data collection without actionable insights)? Does new technology/trend (Example: Moving a desktop app to webapp) provide 10x gain for them?
What can help company get more customers? happier customers? discover new markets? What are new trends that are changing business models? (Examples With smart phone adoption people book movie tickets online)

My personal technique to identify unsolved problem is to work with companies, people who have not use PCs before. Usually at such places a simple software can provide 10x benefits to the customer.

Pinkesh Shah suggested another angle about localizing global products for local context. Brainstorming sessions will lead to more product ideas.

Team

Lot of interesting question were asked at the workshop about team. Can a team with IT services background develop product. That brings us to product design mindset.

Product Design Mindset

Prof. Pinkesh Shah said if customer asks the development team "Jump", then IT services team would say "How High". Product design mindset is where we ask Why? Why are we doing what are we doing? Is this going to be 10x better than current solution?

Engineers

Product manager should delegate engineering decisions to team, provided they have matured in the product design mindset.

Marketing and Sales

To be successful at marketing and sales, team needs to have right combination of listening stills and killer instinct. Product manager of course works closely with marketing and sales organisation.

Product Life-cycle

Everyone is familiar with software design life-cycle models. Working on products imposes another life-cycle on the top of it.

Saying No

What do you do when existing customers asks for 10 new enhancement requests for next version? How do you prioritize without disturbing development plan with limited engineers.

Pricing

Not discussed

Intellectual Property Protection

Not discussed

Trends and Opportunities

I wish panelists could spend more time discussing trends and opportunities. I firmly believe that chances of product success in real market depends on how big and willing the market is for the product. Many good product died because market was not ready for them. So discussion about market trends would have added lot of value.

गूगल नोटू

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जजूर क्यों नहीं। 

आखीर हमने भी तो पाठशाला में हिंदी पडी है. मैं ये समाजनेकी कोशिश कर रहा हूं की भाई ये गूगल का नया फॉण्ट कैसे इस्तेमाल करैं। अंतरिक्ष यान से दूर नीचे पृथ्वी शानदार ढंग से जगमगा रही थी. ज्यादा जानकारी के लिए कृपया यहां देखियेगा। 


गूगल मैं बेंठे कुछ अच्चे लोगोंने ये फॉण्ट बनाया हैं और सबसे बढ़िया बात तो यें हैं की उसे बीना किसी दाम के उपलब्ध भी कर दिया। इसीलिये हमने सोचा इसे कमसे कम इस्तेमाल तो किया जाय. 

Forget Smart Cities, Lets have Twin Cities

While you wait for benefits of Smart City Mission to reach your city, please read this :

Municipal corporations in India are sick, at every possible level (planning, decision making, execution). They do not have capability or will to provide world class municipal services (including basic services as mandated in the Indian constitution) for thousands of new citizens joining the city. Still they keep increasing/expanding the municipal boundaries.

• Lack of town planning and regulations is leading to thousands of illegal housing projects.
• High cost of decent housing for low income groups, leading to illegal slums.
• No focus on providing public transportation leading to explosion in trips using cars, no wonder this leads to traffic congestion.
• Corruption eats away significant portions of the budgets and expenditures on things that do not solve any problems (like Flyovers at busy junctions/squares) 
• They have no grand vision to leverage the culture, heritage and to building a different identity for the city (like Paris has).
• People are being fooled by buzzwords like "Smart city" without having any plan and funds on ground. It is business as usual.

Once of the root causes behind current situation is monopoly of the single sick municipal corporation on geographical location. The sick municipal corporation has monopoly over all natural resources (land, water, hills, gardens etc.) and they can do anything with it. People and genuine businesses are forced into submission due to this monopoly.

We must work to break this monopoly. How?

Remember the times when you had to bribe or wait for months to get a telephone land line connection at home? Govt. agencies had monopoly over telecommunication and they forced you in submission. Mobile phones created the competition that freed people from the shackles of this monopoly.

So point is that there MUST be a competition to the monopoly of single sick municipal corporation over a geographical area. This is possible if we divide the geographical area in to two parts and have two municipal corporations compete with each other. 

People working in factories, IT parks, offices should have a choice when the spend their money on buying property. Two corporations will compete with each other to do efficient tax collection and proper spending money on infrastructure. Corporation which does bad job will be punished by less investment and falling property prices. Also people will be able to compare performance of two and demand results from their representatives.

Does this guarantee world class municipal services? Perhaps no, but it gives people choice to choose lesser evil.

Striking Similarity between India Against Corruption Movement and Free Software Movement

Recently there was split in India's new political party AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) due to irreconcilable differences between co-founder Arvind Kejriwal (now Chief Minister of Delhi) and more idealist co-founders of the party Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan. 

AAP party was born out of India Against Corruption movement to fight various forms of corruption at all levels of Indian government. All other well established political parties in India (BJP and Congress) have taken more "practical view" on corruption as "necessary" evil to run party operations. There was no pressure, will power and perhaps capability with established parties to fix cancer of corruption in Indian politics.

India Against Corruption movement spread quickly in all parts of urban India, thousands of people came of the streets to support the movement. People were tired of phony politics of Congress and BJP and their tolerance of corruption. 

Aam Aadami Party (AAP) was a side effect of this movement. Arvind Kerjiwal was the poster boy. He became popular over time overshadowing more idealist members of the movement. 

Apparently Arvind Kerjiwal found it too difficult to adhere to pure values and ideals of the movement. With AAP winning Delhi elections with Kejriwal elected as Chief minister, the distance between AAP leadership and the original movement grew. Specifically AAP believed that winning Delhi election anyhow was important and providing good governance to Delhi is the top most priority. Arvind is famous for his apparent arrogance and dictatorial traits.

On the other hand, more idealistic leader believed on much large vision of taking the movement to all parts of India and do so without any compromise on principles/values of the movement. The movement should spread all over India and it is much bigger than success in a state election.

Arvind Kejriwal (Poster Boy)

Yogendra Yadav (Idealist but not popular)

Having participated in both Free software movement and India against corruption movement, for me similarity of striking.

Richard Stallman initiates Free software movement based on principles of "software freedoms". Software users and developers were suffering from the monopolist practices of Microsoft and cumbersome software licenses regime. So many people supported free software movement. It grew in many parts of the world.

Open source software projects (under various licenses including GNU GPL) was a side of effect of this movement. Linux Kernel project was born out in the fertile environment created by Free software movement. Linux and its creator Linus Torvalds became poster child of this movement. However Linus never fully supported the ideals of software freedom and refused to help the movement spread. He decided not to call Linux distributions as GNU/Linux. Linus is famously known as "Benevolent Dictator".

Richard Stallman always appreciated Linus as a good engineer, but criticized for compromising on principles of "software freedoms". Stallman believes that movement is much bigger than a single project.

Linus Torvalds (Poster Boy)

Richard Stallman (Idealist but not popular)

What Hinjewadi IT Park employees are doing to solve traffic problem?

Hinjewadi IT Park in Pune is now known for notorious traffic jams on weekdays. Hundreds of thousands of employees (including me) work there. Many vent their frustrations via social media.

The traffic at Hinjewadi is seriously frustrating & hampers productivity at work significantly. Come together. Tweet with #HinjewadiMess.
— Rahul Wane (@rahulwane) February 26, 2015

Road to hinjewadi - IT Capital of Maharashtra.. Place for major IT companies but full of traffic & potholes @Dev_Fadnavis pls do something
— iNikhil (@nikhilsarode123) March 3, 2015

So what are we doing to solve the traffic problem. Is there anything more than can be done?
First of I would like to quickly mention what is being already done to solve the issues.

Public Transport

You will surprised to know many employees regularly use PMPML buses even though they own cars.

Company Provides Buses

Thousands of employees (probably up to 40 %) use company provides buses instead of cars. We should also appreciate company administration managing bus services (in spite of many challenges).

Car Pooling

Many employees have taken efforts to car pool to save cost and indirectly reduce no. of cars on the roads.
One employee even quite his job to create car pooling app: http://www.mebuddie.com/home/carpool
We also hope that Olacabs will come up with some new ideas to encourage car pooling.

Hinjewadi Industries Association

The association has got a very clear mandate from companies to work on issues faced by employees (traffic, safety etc.). Although they are bit slow (lack of resources) they have take efforts towards solving many problems. They also act as official interface with political leaders and representatives,

See their initiative MetroZip.

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/HIA.Pune

You need to contact you company Admin head for any suggestions/ideas for HIA to work on.

Improving Public Transport

There are so many activists and organisation working to improve PMPML and in general state of public transport in Pune. Following is partial list:

• Save Pune Traffic Movement : very active on practical initiatives and working with Pune traffic police
• MCCIA Janwani 
• Parisar (you can participate on very active and informative online forum PTTF
• PMPML Pravasi

What Next?

Political Action

Small changes are possible if we common people co-operate, help, suggest government administration. But big changes are possible only if we actively participate in politics and influence decisions and policies and more importantly how tax payer money is used.

One example of Political action is signature and awareness campaign arranged by Hinjewadi IT park employee Ashish Mishra.

@devendradesh join us today to get solution on #HinjewadiTraffic @adityakaole @sdpolke pic.twitter.com/LXh1f6bQPY
— AshishMishra (@aashish81us) February 28, 2015

A meet was arranged at Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar. Lots of people working in Hinjewadi IT park stay in this area. We had a very good discussion and exchange of ideas and took few signatures of people supporting the campaign.

Urban Transportation and Quality of Life

One might think that poor transportation infrastructure & services only have short term consequences like traffic jams, accidents (fatal and non-fatal) and in general waste of time and energy. However the impact is much more deeper and long term affecting our "quality of life".

What is quality of life? 

Without even going into formal definition and various indices that used in different parts of world to measure it, following is list of topics that most of us can agree upon as basic ingredients of quality of life (specifically in context of urban life in India).

• Affordable access to basic needs (Food, water, clean air, shelter), in good quality and quantity 
• Freedom/opportunities to pursue any education/career of choice
• Ample time to share with family, to pursue hobbies, social activities/contribution and leisure/creative activities
• Freedom from constant fear, worry, anxiety, physical hardship
• Environment that promotes good physical and mental health

So if we agree on above definition of quality of life, does transportation services affect it for citizens living in an urban area like Pune? To what extent? If yes, then is society as a whole paying cost for it?

I present you a kind of testimonial of Pune citizens describing how urban transportation service affected their decisions and eventually their quality of life.

Ameya, Age 32

  Ameya was born and brought up in Pune. After completing masters from a university in USA, he came back to India to be able to live with his family/parents. He works in one of many IT/Software companies in Hinjewadi IT Park, located outskirts of Pune city.

  Ameya lives in Kothrud, residential area and daily commutes 50 KMs total to office. Thanks to notorious traffic jams at Hinjewadi during rush hours, commuting consumes at least 2 hrs daily using company provided bus service, which means he is unable to visit gym as much as he would like to do. He found that his health and fitness level slowly deteriorated over years, thanks to long hours in front of computer and in commuting and little time spend on exercise.

Health is Wealth

  Last month, Ameya took decision for the sake of his health that he must reduce commuting time by relocating to residential area very near to his company office. Which means he must rent a house, even though he already owns a house and must separate from his parents.

Clearly Ameya has less freedom and choice, but at least now he can spend more time on health ...

Shivraj, Age 35

Shivraj is a musician at heart, however like many other people who could not pursue their real interests, Shivraj now works in a company and plays music only on weekends. 

Music is my life

Shivraj daily commutes (total 2 hours) to work using car pooling, which mean he needs to obey time preferences of car owner. This results in very little time in the morning for music practice (Riyaaz).
Shivraj is unable to pursue his real interest in music, what a loss of talent for society ...

Mr. Godse, Age 38
Until last month, Mr. Godse was a happy family man, with good job that he enjoyed, home owned in very good part of Pune city, with office located very near from his home,  2 kids enrolled to good schools near home.
  Mr. Godse faced a tough decision when his company decided to shift office to outskirts (Industrial park with relatively cheaper office buildings) of the city. He loved his job, he was good at it, but new office was now located outskirts of the city and would need total commuting of 3 hrs, which means less time spent at home with wife and kids.
  After some serious thought Mr. Godse decided to sacrifice his career and decided to leave the company, he then joined a company that has office near to his home, although new job does not realize full potential of Mr. Godse.
  Mr. Godse sacrificed his career for family's sake ....

Avinash, Age 28
Avinash represents young Indians who do shy away from active politics. Deeply influenced by Gandhi, Phule and other 20th century idealistic Indian leaders and social workers, Avinash wants to contribute to society by participating in active politics.

Active Participation Of Good People in Politics

  He wish to join a new idealistic political party and attend meetings as regularly as possible. Unfortunately party office is in center of city and while Avinash works in Industrial area outside the city. There is no fast transportation system that will make it feasible for Avinash to attend the meetings after office hours and them return back to home at sensible time to have dinner with his 1 year daughter and wife.
Avinash may have to forget about active participation in politics and be contained with voting not so idealistic people ...

Payal, Age 14

Payal: My dream is to learn French

Payal has a special gift. She can learn a new language very quickly, she is already fluent in spoken English. Recently she saw French movie at a International film festival and now she is absolutely mad about everything French. She seriously want to learn French and be proficient in it. Luckily she lives in Pune where Alliance Francaise has a office and they offer programs to learn French. Payal informed her parents about it, hoping to get a go, however her parents would not let her travel by moped (too dangerous) or public transportation (unsafe, crowded and filthy). Parents told her that learning French was not worth the trouble and risk of travel.    
Young Payal had to give up her dreams of doing something extra-ordinary and continued with normal school subjects ...

Exercise for reader: How would you rate each of above person on Quality of life? Could better transportation services improve quality of life in each case?

Things I loved about Kerala

It is amazing how much diverse India is geographically and climate wise. Central Kerala just offers variety of experiences including fresh and cool air at Munnar, wild life of Tekkaddy (Periyar), backwaters, beaches of Alleppy and modern city of Cochin. As usual here are things I loved :

Trees
I just love serine beauty and peace of trees, lakes and sunshine. Kerala offers your more than you expect.

Rise and Shine

Wild Life

• Lakes and Birds
• Flowers, Bees
• Animals (pet and wild)

Food, Oh the food
In this land of spices, it is no wonder that even simplest of the food tastes great. Mouth watering fish curries made of coconut oil and milk. South Indian snacks like Dosa and Banana chips.

Beach

• Clean and secluded
• Safe to swim 
• Bird friendly
  
  

Strike
Strikes in Kerala are amusing. Your car will be stopped at each town/village and asked to wait aside, then people who organised the strike will come to you, chat, smile as if everything is normal. You can get down from your car, explore the village, gardens (which will have spices, bananas etc.) and take a break. Then suddenly you will asked to continue your journey, as if nothing happened. What a peaceful way to conduct a strike ...

Arts, Culture and People

• Laid back, easy going, tolerant
• Ancient and diverse culture 
• Happy

Things I Loved about Kashmir Valley

Trees

• Magnificent
• Old and huge
• Chinar tree  (typical of Himalayas, not same as Maple tree). See Save Chinar.

Pair of Chinar Trees

 

Flowers

• Bright and colorful
• Fat and Happy

 

Mughal Style Gardens

• Use of mountain slopes for water flows
• Royal
• Ancient tradition

Lakes and Mountains

• Calm and serene waters
• Pristine
• Rapid rivers with ice cold water

Snow

• Shiny

Art and Architecture

• Wooden Walls
• Homes for Winter

History

• Thousand years old
• Multiple religions and beliefs
• Tragedy of India Pakistan partition

People

• Rural, Shy and humble
• Deeply Religious
• Happy and relaxed (thanks to great climate, in spite of violence and military presence in the region)
• Longing for Peace (Aman) and real democracy (self rule)