Category / Just like that

by Nirupam Biswas

Registering a new car in Telangana RTO in 2023

The dealer takes care of paying the RTO fees and getting a temporary number. Then they tend to handover to an agent for slot booking and getting the permanent registration number. I was asked Rs. 3000 for this. I asked around, some were asked Rs. 1500, etc. fees. I decided to do it on my own as my RTO (Kondapur RTO) was quite near to me.

Slot booking

  1. Goto https://tgtransport.net/TGCFSTONLINE/OnlineTransactions/RegSlot.aspx
  2. Enter the requested details. On entering the OTP, applicant’s details will be shown below. Submit the page to book the slot. No fees will be charged.
  3. Take a print out of the slot booking confirmation.
  4. From the dealer do collect the following documents. They usually give that to the agent, so do ask for them and positively collect it from them.
    • Form 20 (2 copies)
    • Form 21
    • Form 22 (This is provided by the car manufacturer. Do not loose this as getting a duplicate of this will be very very difficult and I was told it could take months.)
    • Insurance Certificate
    • Invoice from Dealer (You might get 2 copies of this as well. Keep one copy with you.)
    • Life Tax Receipt
    • Temporary registration certificate
    • Car price sheet (Tick the exact car model bought by you. RTO uses this to cross-check the life tax amount.)
  5. Along with the above you will also need.
    • Valid address proof, like Aadhaar card, passport, etc. You must carry their original and a self attested copy.
    • Pan card (Original and self attested copy)
  6. Keep a pen and a pencil with you. (Yes a pencil too. Must have.)
  7. Ask your dealer or check online to figure out where your car’s stamped VIN is located. It should be etched on some metal, not merely printed.

Visit the RTO

  1. On your chosen day visit the RTO. You would have chosen a date and time. Ignore the time and just go early as it is going to take quite a while. And do take your car which is to be registered along with you.
  2. Park the car and goto counter where the new vehicle registration documents are submitted. Ask around for that. Usually there will be a board on that counter which would announce that and a list of documents to bring. In our case only four – five people were in the line and the agents were using the back door, carrying with them a thick bundle of documents of various clients. It took around 20mins here since for each person all the aforementioned documents has to be cross-checked by the RTO officer. After successfully completing this step he will hand over a small slip with application number and the fees collected. For us, weirdly it mentioned a slew of different fees on it and at the end said, money collected is zero. And surely no actual money was collected!
  3. Next is getting your picture clicked for the RC and specimen signature. This was a huuu…ge line. We thought easily it would take one or two hours. Fortunately, in my case, it was my wife’s car and for ladies there was a separate line of only two people. We were done in five minutes.
  4. Next and final is locate the hut where policemen are seated and get the car inspected by them. On both copies of Form 20’s end you will need to trace the car’s VIN number using the pencil (video). Be careful to not tear the forms in the process or move the form so much that the trace is illegible. Take the traced forms to policeman, who will verify the VIN and you are done.

Checking for status online

Periodically check on https://tgtransport.net/TGCFSTONLINE/reports/applicationstatussearch.aspx. It could take a while to be updated. It will provide details like when the application gets approved, RC gets printed and dispatched. It will also provide the India Post tracking number. The provided India Post tracking number may not work for few days after the dispatch date. Your RC will arrive at your home address, but the number plate will goto the showroom. The dealer will install that at the showroom.

I did not receive any SMS updates and the number plates arrived before the RC. You can use M-Wallet app to virtually download your RC.

Agent v/s Own

TimeCost
Via Agent5mins (on 1st window) + 5mins-120mins (on second window. You will have to get in line here) + 15mins (the policeman will come to you and the agent may or may not help you to get the trace) = 25mins-140minsRs. 1500 -Rs. 3000
Own20mins + 5-120mins + 15mins (you goto the policeman and since 90% people take help of agents, so this person will usually be sitting all alone :P) = 40mins-155minsZero

Take your pick!

by Nirupam Biswas

Starting OnePlus Android phone when its power button is broken

I have an ancient OnePlus 6 which my son uses for watching cartoon. Recently its power button stopped working and my son drained its battery until it shutdown. Fortunately its volume buttons are still working.

For this you will need a laptop and a USB-C cable to connect the phone with the laptop.

  1. Ensure the phone is charged.
  2. Remove the cable from the phone.
  3. Press the volume down button. Keep it pressed.
  4. While keeping the button pressed insert one of the of the cable into the phone and the other end in the charger or laptop or power bank.
  5. Still keep the volume button pressed until you see something on the screen. Then release the button.
  6. You will now get into phone’s recovery menu. Some versions of One Plus and other Android phones have restart option right here. If yes then choose that and you are done. – Else continue below –
  7. In my case; in OnePlus 6; I had to choose Advanced option and within that it had “Reboot to fastboot” and “Reboot to recovery mode”. Choose “Reboot to fastboot” here. But wait!
  8. First goto your laptop and install ADB tools from Google. Choose one from the following based on your laptop’s operating system.
  9. Extract the contents of the above zip file. Now choose the “Reboot to fastboot” option on your phone. Without this you will not able to turn on or off your phone until it runs out of battery since this mode requires the use of power button to confirm the selection.
  10. Connect the phone to the laptop using the cable then go into the extracted zip file’s directory and run ./fastboot devices to confirm that your phone is detected.
  11. Finally run ./fastboot reboot this will respond with a “Ok” response and your phone will reboot into normal mode. Congrats!

by Nirupam Biswas

Deep dive into new tax regime of Budget 2020

Budget 2020 is a mixed bag and for the first time it provides the option to choose your tax slab. You have two slabs to choose from. The well understood old one and the new one. New one offers lower tax slabs but without any deductions (except for select few like 80CCD(2)).

There is nothing simple to having two slabs as option. Let’s compare the two and try to understand which one is better and under what circumstances.

Circumstance is the key word here; hence there are so many articles and videos which try to explain this using specific examples. I am not going into a specific case. But will use the power of graphs to plot all possible scenarios from income level 0 to 2Cr. This will hopefully provide some more insight into this mess.

In the below interactive chart the blue line is the tax amount (including applicable surcharge and 4% cess) as per the new slab. The orange line is the tax as per the old slab but without claiming any deductions. It is clear that purely slab-wise the new plan is lighter on tax. The jumps at 50L and 1Cr points are due to surcharges – 10% after 50L and 15% after 1Cr. Irrespective of that the tax as per new slab linearly increases similar to old slab while maintaining almost same difference.

See the Pen New vs Old Tax Comparision (data only) by Nirupam (@applegrew) on CodePen.

Interactive chart 1

From the graph above it might look like taxes from both slabs are exactly equidistant but if we zoom onto the green line at the bottom, we can see that it is not exactly that.

The difference increases as we move towards higher income. It is fixed after 15L slab. After that it increases in steps at 50L & 1Cr points.

What is clear is that as your income increase you need to claim more deductions to benefit from the old slabs.

Zooming into the portion before 15L shows a pretty unpredictable “wavy” difference. That means predicting if you will loose or gain if you use the new plan is much harder here. What is clear is that as your income increase you need to claim more deductions to benefit from the old slabs.

The below interactive chart shows the amount of deductions you need to claim in old slab to just match the tax benefits you get from new slab. In the topmost interactive chart this data is shown by red line near the bottom of the chart.

See the Pen Tax deductions comparision only (data only) by Nirupam (@applegrew) on CodePen.

Interactive chart 2

From 15L point it pretty fixed. You need to claim more than 2.5L of deductions to get benefit from old slab.

From 15L point it pretty fixed. You need to claim more than 2.5L of deductions to get benefit from old slab. If you cannot then switch to new slab. Out of 2.5L 50k Standard deduction you get for free, so what is left is 2L deduction. For that you need to max out your 80C, and NPS or 80D. If you have a home loan then it would be easier because you can claim 2L per annum of interest amount you paid for home loans. However, loans typically have more interest component towards the start and more principal amount at the end. To see how much interest you are paying year wise see – https://blog.applegrew.com/2019/01/calculating-amortisation-schedule-of-your-loans/.

The big dips after exact 50L and 1Cr points are due to surcharges. Even claiming a small deduction can bring your income to a slab where surcharge is zero or less, making your taxes match the gain in new slab. However, this lasts for approximate 4.5L range.

Let’s have a look at the range before 15L point more closely.

From 5L to 7.5L range the required deduction linearly increases from zero to 1.24L. So if you max out your 80C then that is good enough reason for you to keep using old slab.

From 7.5L to 10L range the rate of increase in required deduction amount lessens. At 10L point the required deduction is 1.88L. This plateaus out and continues until 12L point like that. Removing 50k, we are left with 1.38L deductions to fulfil. Here too if you just max out your 80C then old slab is great for you.

12L to 12.5L is one small range and then 12.5 to 15L range. The deduction for this range varies from 1.88L to 2.08L and 2.08L to 2.5L respectively. Here you need to pretty much max out 80C with NPS or 80D or should have home loans.

Finally

HRA is also one significant amount which I have not considered here. All in all figure out your gross income then use interactive chart 2 and locate your income level on x-axis. That should provide you with the min deduction amount you need claim to benefit from old slab. Add all your actual deductions and see if that fits the requirement.

However, even after the flat 50k deduction if you have the need to switch to new tax then you are not saving enough!

Addendum

Update1: I almost forgot about Standard deduction of 50k which you get in old slabs but not in new one. Updated the article accordingly.

by Nirupam Biswas

Good old coding days

Today I noticed a Facebook post from Ubuntu.

It took me back to my 6th-8th grade school days. These kinds of interesting games with such graphics made me want to immediately code them on my own with my own little spin. They were hugely satisfying. At that time I did not own a computer at home so I would take a notebook and write pages after pages of codes. Then I would coax by dad to get access to computer at his office. His office had only one computer and that too only in my dad’s boss’ cabin. His boss was the head of the office.

Once I got the access to the computer, usually on off days, I would copy all the codes from my notebook to the computer and save it on my floppy disks (yup floppy disks). This would go on for few turns as computer time was limited. Then I would get the chance to finally test the codes.

There was some kind of charm to it and they got me real high.

Now I develop web based applications for a living. I am a full stack developer, in layman terms I build from the engines all the way to seat covers of a car. It has its high moments but I still feel I have and always have had an itch to create games.

by Nirupam Biswas

Fix very low call volume on OnePlus 3

I recently faced this issue after a recent update on my OnePlus 3. The guide at – http://innov8tiv.com/fix-low-call-volume-oneplus-3t-calls/ is pretty good. However, the “Safe Mode” test failed for me, then next steps was clean with toothbrush.

I was very much convinced that my ear piece was pretty clean and anyway I wiped it with cloth many times and there was no visible dirt. However, when I took closeup picture of the earpiece I noticed that the grill mesh was very very small. And it seemed like maybe those tiny holes in the grill have been plugged by microscopic dirt.

Checkout the grill closeup below (this is after cleaning):-

I didn’t have a toothbrush with fine enough bristles. So instead I used a cotton swab, dipped in nail polish remover. I rubbed with that couple of times and presto, the low volume issue is fixed!

TIP: You need to tilt the handset sideways against the sunlight (as shown in the pic above) to be able to see the grill holes. If they look dark then the hole is open, else maybe they are plugged.

by Nirupam Biswas

Facebook’s evil Free Basics

It is hard to appreciate the evil in FB’s “Free Basic”. The simple facts.

If and when “Free Basics” becomes very popular, which in all likelihood it will, if government does not ban it, then people will mostly probably stop renewing their mobile data plans. That means they will be able to access only “basic” sites when on the go. If tomorrow a startup creates a competing social network – Coolbook, there is no chance, no matter how good it is, Facebook will allow it on its “Free Basics”. So that means a lot and lot of users who are now already used to “Free Basics” will rarely access that site, causing it to shutdown due to poor response, even if few people like us want to use it.

So, if majority supports “Free Basics” we are basically screwed since that will make Mark and FB to become our country’s internet gatekeeper; even if the minority does not like it. This is such an evil but genius scheme.

However, there is still slim sign of hope. In India we are very demanding customers, even when freeloading. When “Free Basics” takes off people are going to use it real heavily, and due to the sheer volume it will inevitably result into slowdown, and public outcry, giving it the much needed negative publicity.

Needless to say, all and everyone should oppose this. Do not bank on the small hope. Take action and goto savetheinternet.in.