NDTV bought a fake commercial licence in Aligarh for just Rs 200
Uber cab driver Shiv Kumar Yadav, arrested for allegedly raping a passenger last week, faked a character certificate from the police to hide his multiple criminal cases. NDTV has found that he could well have got a fake commercial driving licence too, for just Rs 200.
Yadav's arrest has brought into sharp focus the abysmal system of verifying documents and references that Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari conceded when he said over 30 per cent of the licences were fake. With a hidden camera and a few hundred rupees, NDTV learnt how easy it is to beat the system.
In Delhi, touts outside two transport offices promised to hand us a legit commercial licence for Rs 4500-8000. For an extra Rs 500, we could even skip 15 days of training and sit through one day.
A licence can even be arranged in less than a day, we heard, and to test that, we drove to Aligarh, two hours from Delhi.
At the Regional Transport Office there, we approached one of the touts waving us over and told him we needed a license in a hurry.
"No problem, a fake one can be arranged for Rs 300, a genuine one will take about two weeks," the man replied, explaining that an authentic license would cost about 500 rupees.
We decided to make it harder, and said we had no proof of residence. "No problem," he assured, adding, "Just fill out your name and address on a chit of paper and give me one photograph."
We persisted, "But what about car insurance?" Without missing a beat, he replied, "No problem, 350 rupees for car insurance."
After a few minutes of haggling, the price came down to Rs 200 for the license and Rs 250 for a fake car insurance cover note. He asked us to come back in two hours.
"Your papers are ready," he said when we returned, producing a neatly filled out insurance cover note from his file. It showed an insurance premium of Rs 14,580, though we had paid just Rs 250.
He also handed us a driving license that had all relevant stamps and initials. It was backdated to May 19, 2012, when paper licenses were still being issued in Aligarh. The city has now switched to the chip-based smart card. Would it work? "Guaranteed. There will be no problem," the man told us as he started to pack up, apparently late for lunch.