Category / Top Posts

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

How to register your Aadhaar number with your bank (ICICI) without the physical Aadhar card

If you are one of those unfortunates who need to register their Aadhaar number with your bank to get LPG gas subsidy, but you lost your Aadhaar card or did not receive that, then read on…

About two years back I enrolled for Aadhaar. I never received that, but I did not bother checking, since in those days Aadhaar was mostly like a passing fad. Well, now it is different. We have probably three more months of grace period before this abomination kicks in.

I went to ICICI bank with my e-Aadhaar print out, but they refused to accept that, citing company directive to accept only physical cards. This was done to prevent fraud. I contacted Aadhaar “Customer Care” to request for a duplicate physical card, but was informed that there is no such provision! In fact they have been informed that e-Aadhaar should be accepted in lieu of Aadhaar card.

I had hit a stone wall. The only way I could resolve this by trying to reason with ICICI (my bank). We cannot reason with the Govt., which keep on inventing nasty little things to make our life difficult. I tried sending my concern via https://infinity.icicibank.co.in/web/emailus/jsp/emailUs.jsp but that ended up in internal server error. Nice! (sarcasm)

I let the issue rest for sometime. After reading about the LPG deadline again in the newspapers I shook myself up, and started finding alternative ways to get in touch with ICICI. During my hunt I ended up with the email id of the CEO. I mailed to her my plight and requested her to invent an alternative process for people like us. After all, if the aim is to prevent fraud then there should be other ways too. Also they are our banker who already know so much about us to form an informed likely-hood of fraudulent stunts we may try.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from a Senior Manager within one business day. She assured me they will address this. On the second day I got a call from my bank Branch Manager that a new process has been sanctioned and I need to bring my Aadhaar Enrollment slip with me. Yeeaah! The Manager used the Enrollment slip to download my e-Aadhaar from uidai.gov.in directly onto his system. Some form fillings and photocopies of an Id proof and I was done.

So, if you have an account in ICICI then you can use the above process. You might want to directly check with the Branch Manager if the bank employees insist that original Aadhaar card is a must and there is no other way. They may not be informed. This process came into effect on 21st May, 2013.

If you have account in other banks and they do not yet have such a provision then you might want to communicate with the bank senior management. I was informed by a reliable source that the banks received a circular in March of this year from Govt., that e-Aadhaar should be accepted in lieu of original Aadhaar card.

I also got another info that you can download your e-Aadhaar for a maximum of five times. I am not sure how true is this, but I am not keen on testing this myself. 😛

BTW, for your information I will reiterate that – there is no way as of now to request for duplicate Aadhaar card.

Anyway, happy enrolling your Aadhaar. BTW do not forget to take your mobile phone too since you will receive your OTP on your registered phone when then bank employee tries to download your e-Aadhaar.

Update 26-Aug-2013 I am an Indane LPG customer and when I checked my Aadhaar status on their site, it showed Red for LPG and White (Invalid/Unkown) for Bank. I seeded my LPG information online from https://rasf.uidai.gov.in. Also I created an account on Indane and there they again ask for the Aadhaar details, which I provided.

Update 2-Sep-2013 Now Indane site shows Green for LPG side and Bank side is Red! I already seeded by Aadhaar with bank in May. I followed up with ICICI customer care and got it confirmed that they have my correct Aadhaar number. They suggested, I check with the Gas agency, since enrolling online may not be same as enrolling offline.

Update 6-Sep-2013 Went to my Gas agency. According to them my Aadhaar is already enrolled. So, it seems enrolling online is enough. Now I am stuck again. My guess is that the Indane software checks the status in its own database. Maybe it sycns the Bank linkage details on monthly basis for accounts with valid LPG linkage. I will now wait till the end of this month. If it becomes Green till then, fine, else I will have to pay a visit to my bank.

Update 18-Sep-2013 Finally! Now Indane site shows that both IOCL and bank are linked. It is showing green for both now. I have been checking almost regularly, so it took around 15 days to refresh.

Update 10-Oct-2013 I received my first DBT (Direct Bank Transfer) subsidy! The subsidy was credited one day before I received SMS from Indane that cash memo has been generated. However, the amount is Rs.435 only. This time they charged Rs.1096 (plus Rs.20 extortion by delivery boy) so the net cylinder refill price comes to Rs.661! That is damn costly. Few months back it was less than Rs.500. PS. The subsidy from Indane was credited by the name ‘APBS_IOC R_07-10-2013’, so look for similar name in your bank statement.

Update 18-Dec-2014 Today I finally received my Aadhaar card! That is, I received it after around 3.5+ years later!!! Kudos to Indian bureaucracy, they do get things done, even though it may not matter by then.

by Nirupam Biswas

Router settings for TATA Indicom Broadband connection.

I have a Netgear ADSL Wifi router. The router provided to me by TATA Indicom was below par so I decided to use my router. Below are the settings you need to configure your router. Note that you need a router with ADSL modem (like my Netgear DG834G).

Multiplexing method: LLC-Based
DSL Mode: ADSL2+
VPI: 0
VCI: 32
Encapsulation: PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet)
Login: (e.g. chitran@vsnl.com, check the receipt given to you for your email ID)
Password: (default is reset123)
That’s it. These the critical values you need. Particularly if you set VPI and VCI values to anything but the ones listed above then you will not be able to connect to the net.
Happy surfing!
PS: If your plan provides static IP address then chances are that you will be using completely different protocol, e.g. maybe MER (MAC Encapsulated Routing) instead of PPPoE. In that case the above giude is not useful for you.
by Nirupam Biswas

Using Airtel Edge/GPRS Micromax MMX 610U USB device to surf the internet from Linux

This has been a major headache for me to reboot to Windows just to surf my net, and to update my Linux machine I had to forward the internet connection from a Windows computer to my Linux machine. None-the-less I eventually managed to make it work to day. 🙂

Note that I managed to make it work, and I provide no guarantee that it will work on your computer, but I will share my computer’s configuration so that it may help you.

So, first my computer’s configuration. I have Kubuntu Hardy Heron installed (8.04). My current kernel is 2.6.24-19-generic (installed from the official Ubuntu server). Mine is a 32-bit system. The USB modem I have is Micromax MMX 610U.

Now the steps to setup your USB modem:-

  1. Plug-in your USB modem. A green light will start blinking. If the light is blue then you have PIN set and I have no idea how to enter PIN code from Linux. In that case, reboot to Windows and from the provided Airtel’s software enter the PIN code and reboot to Linux or disable the PIN altogether.
  2. Now run the command lsusb in the console the output will be like as below.Bus 005 Device 003: ID 0d49:7410 Maxtor
    Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
    Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
    Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c016 Logitech, Inc. M-UV69a Optical Wheel Mouse
    Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
    Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
    Bus 001 Device 004: ID 12d1:1001 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E620 USB Modem
    Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

    An Important Note:-
    As I have found out that hot plugging of this USB modem doesn’t work. The modem will be detected by the kernel but for some reason wvdial won’t be able to locate the modem, hence, when you insert the modem into your USB drive then reboot your computer (or plug it in before turning on your computer).

    Note the bolded text above. That’s your modem.

  3. Now run sudo wvdialconf. This will create the file /etc/wvdial.conf with some of the necessary values.
  4. Now whatever values the file /etc/wvdial.conf keep that as such except for the ones shown below. If any settings shown below already existed then replace that with the ones below, if they didn’t exist then just add them to the file, but they must appear below the line [Dialer Defaults]. Note that will need to open the file /etc/wvdial.conf as a root. Try using sudo nano /etc/wvdial.conf.Init1 = AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”airtelgprs.com”,””,0,0
    Baud = 460800
    stupid mode = 1
    Phone = *99#
    Password = a     ;No need to change this to anything else. This is immaterial, and note that no semicolon before Password =.
    Username = a ;No need to change this to anything else. This is immaterial, and note that no semicolon before Username =.
  5. Now create a file connAir in your home directory. Copy and paste the following code into it and give it execute permission.
    [code lang=”bash”]#!/bin/bash
    # BY AppleGrew @ http://blog.applegrew.com (All rigths
    # reserved)

    pid=`pgrep wvdial`
    if [ -z $pid ]
    then

    sudo route del default
    echo "CONNECTING TO Airtel…"
    wvdial &

    sleep 10s

    IP=`ifconfig ppp0|grep -o  ‘inet addr:\([.0-9]*\)’`
    IP=`echo $IP|sed  ‘s/inet addr:\([.0-9]*\)/\1/g’`
    echo "YOUR CURRENT IP IS ‘$IP’".
    if [ -z $IP ]
    then
    echo "CONNECTION TO Airtel TIMED-OUT…….. : ("
    else
    echo "CONNECTED TO Airtel. : )"
    fi
    sudo route add default gw $IP

    else
    echo "A CONNECTION IS ALREADY IN PROGRESS."
    fi[/code]

  6. Now create another file disconnAir in your home directory. Copy and paste the following code into it and give it execute permission.
    [code lang=”bash”]#!/bin/bash
    # BY AppleGrew @ http://blog.applegrew.com (All rigths
    # reserved)

    pid=`pgrep wvdial`
    if [ -z $pid ]
    then
    echo "NO CONNECTION IN PROGRESS."
    else
    echo "DISCONECTTING FROM Airtel…"
    kill -INT $pid

    sleep 6s
    pid=`pgrep wvdial`
    if [ -z $pid ]
    then
    echo "DISCONNECTED."
    else
    echo "DISCONNECTION MAY HAVE FAILED."
    fi
    fi[/code]

Connecting to Airtel:-

  1. Open console and type ./connAir.

Disconnecting from Airtel:-

  1. Open console and type ./disconnAir.

Hope this helps.

by Nirupam Biswas

Days of my TVM ILP

The post below has not been refined and is almost like a rough note rather than an article, hence you may find the sentences below quite funnily structured and sometimes difficult interpret. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This post is about my friends at ILP and me and not ILP itself. I have used the initials of my friends’ names to conceal their identities.

My friends got their call for ILP seven days before the joining date. They were supposed to report at Guwahati. At the end of that day I was the only one who still didn’t receive any mail. It was very frustrating. I even shot a mail to Kolkata HR about this. I got my mail next day. I was asked to report, not at Guwahati, but at Trivandrum. I was now very upset. Of all the people they chose me and only me to report at the other end of India, why why…! I later came to know that out of 171 people only 23 people were asked to report at Trivandrum and I am the only person from CSE, BIT to Trivandrum.

My accommodation was arranged at Assumpta Tourist Home by TCS. It was not such a good hotel. The walls were quite dirty, but the bathroom was cleaner. We were told by TCS that the bedsheets would be changed every 3 days and the rooms would be cleaned everyday. In reality, bedsheets were changed and the rooms were cleaned only on Mondays. All-in-all, the hotel was okay as it was at the heart of the city. The nearest good restaurant was Arul Jyoti.

Apprehensive about who will be my room partner, I asked Assumpta’s manager to allot me a room. He recommended room 302, as the guy (ShaB) there seemed well natured to him. My first impression of him was that he is from a very rich family and possibly he is a snob. Don’t know why, but I got this impression of him. In a day or two I found out he was a nice guy. In few more days I found out that he was a total clown. We nick named him Charlie after Charlie Chaplin. Not only because of his jovial nature but also because his face has uncanny resemblance to the legend. He has a very unusual way of laughing. When he laughs, his upper jaw-line pops out from behind his upper lips and his face turns red. We all wondered from where did he get his ideas. He never seemed to run out of them. Alas! I have never been able to see deeper into him, beyond his jovial face.

Next morning when we got ready for our first day, other TCSers on our floor, who were all from Mumbai and the very same college from where ShaB was, introduced themselves to me. After that we all got onto the bus that was waiting for us to take us to TCS Peepul Park Campus in Technopark. It was a new day of a new chapter in my life and I was looking forward to make new friends. I had already made one new friend – my roommate. My only worry was making new friends. I being an introvert, is not very good in making friends fast. It took me 1 or 2 semesters to make bonds with some my present good friends from the college. It took me 2 years of my college life to know all the 90 people of my class. I knew I had to somehow make friends and bond with them faster. When we reached the campus I tried to remain with SB and his mumbaiya group, viz. – MA, MS, SD and NG. Sometimes they tried giving attention to me and were very friendly, but still I was usually ignored by them because I spoke much less. It was difficult for me to speak anything random to them as I had almost no knowledge of Mumbai and its life and absolutely no knowledge of their college – VESIT; we didn’t share anything in common, and I was still quite depressed by the fact that TCS chose me to tear apart from my friends. Furthermore, they sometimes used to speak in Marathi, which is as incomprehensible to me as is Malayalam. ShaB was and still is particularly notorious for preferring to talk in Marathi in my presence.

The first three or four days of ILP had been traumatic for me, not only because of the incessant dose of merciless induction lectures one after another but also because I was feeling so alone. I was trying to gel with the mumbaiya bhais and I was still feeling like an outsider. This experience was damn depressing. I hope that I will never have to go through that again. After these initial three or four days my first breakthrough came when SD started paying attention to me. He was the quietest and an introvert among the group. He was my first respite. SD and I gelled well together. He was very much like me. An introvert and a geek by nature. He has a very innocent smile and gaze. Later I gelled with other group people too. By this time I had started feeling much better, but still there was an invisible wall between me and the group. It was the language. They preferred Marathi, which was like Malayalam for me. So, most of the time I didn’t know what was going on and had no choice but to keep mum. Because of this my friends got the wrong impression that I like to remain reserved.

Few days later I came to know two more persons. One punjabi kuri, SB, and another Marathi gal, SA. SB is a good friend of MA. They are friends for past four years, so it was quite natural that they were always seen together, but this gave me the wrong idea that they were more than just friends. SB is an unusual girl. She has a very (as VK puts it) ‘loud’ body language and is very polished. Her first impression over others is usually as a snob. As far as I am concerned, I didn’t feel like that. I formed my opinion about her quite later. I was way too much amazed by her way of talking. Her way of talking is child-like, which in Hindi we call ‘totla‘. Its cute and weird both when spoken by a 21 year old person. I will really miss that voice. Later as I came to know her better I found out that she is also very intelligent, only that she is too lazy or distracted to use it. Things that I like the most about her is her jovial nature. She is always fun to be with. Always happy and rarely sad.

Now about SA. Her first impression on me was that she is a gujju girl. This is because I have an impression that usually gujju girls have good figures and are very simple minded and innocent. She is very much like ‘Gattu’ of ‘Ba Bahu Aur Baby’; simple, innocent, smiling and happy. M is a lucky man. I envy him. She is definitely the most pampered kid of her home. Its awesome, how can someone maintain ones child-like innocence to the adulthood. Her family must have put great efforts in insulating her from the vices of the world. Given that, she gets upset so easily, I can only pray that she grows up soon.

Before our EC1 exam, MA and I decided to stay back at the lab for a whole night to complete the exercise. At around 11 pm changu-mangu too joined us. By-the-way, changu-mangu are SB and SA. I call them that because they always (mark it, always) stay together, as if they are advertising Fevicol-ka-jhor (pardon me for this mercilessly poor joke). Many times they even wear similar dresses. They are similar in more than one ways. They are both jovial, energetic and always remain stuck to their cell phones. I have seen people speaking so much over the phone only when they have bf or gf. It is true in case of SA, but I am still confused about SB. Anyway back to the lab; we started solving our exercises. By 1 or 2 am MA and SB where worn out and started dozing off. SA and I continued to rack our brains. Few minutes later changu-mangu left for their room. Our hotel being 18 KM from Technopark, we had no choice but to wait till morning. I also dozed off for an hour or two and then I continued with the exercises again. After 2 am the only thing MA did was doze off and suddenly wakeup and unlock the screen and then doze off again. At 6 am we left for our hotel. It was Sunday. We then spent the whole Sunday sleeping while our other friends set out for Technopark to complete the exercises.

Before I move on I would like to comment about MA. He has a good personality. He makes his presence felt. He became our unofficial transport facilitator. One thing we all hated about him is his ‘divide by 6’ policy, i.e. no matter how less or more you eat he used the simple rule of equally dividing the total bill amount among all the friends there. Other than that he is a nice fellow. He is slight impulsive and he is a complete phattu. While coding for his project, the moment he used to come across any deadened he used to start sweating profusely and you can clearly notice the tension on his pale face. The best thing in him is that he takes negative comments about him in positive sense and actually tries to mend it.

Before our EC2 exam we made an one day trip to Kanyakumari with 19 friends. It was fun. SA played a nice trick on NG. We were all in the dark Meditation Room on the Vivekanada Rock Memorial, when SA asked NG to ask the person sitting before him to go too. NG thinking that the person was one of the friends, nudged him, only to realize then that he was not. SA was aware of this and did this on purpose. We had a good laugh afterwards.

Kanyakumari lacks a beach hence we went to its shore which had many sharp stones. Many people returned wounded (including me) from that trip. It was fortunate enough that nobody was seriously hurt, which I was afraid of as some of the friends grew too much reckless in their antics and stunts. But it was fun. This is where I noticed, contrary to my expectation, that SA is quite adventurous. MA was rather unusually reserved during this. He took over the charge of taking care of everybody else’s belongings and stayed away from the water. During this trip I also noticed NG’s inclination towards meditation, religion and nature. I too have an inclination towards nature. I don’t usually share my feelings with my friends, because contrary to general wisdom, it makes me feel worse. The sunset and the calm after that usually unsettles whatever is locked inside me. Damn!

NG, as I have already pointed out earlier, appreciates nature and has an inclination towards meditation. He too seems to observe people keenly. He has a very bad habit of using really bad examples to explain things or describe someone. He can sometimes get on your nerves but is usually a nice person to be with. May God help him with his examples. Another very intriguing thing about him is that he is some kind of gay magnet! Maybe it is because of his slight girlish way of talking or anything else.

Back from our Kanyakumari trip, we were greeted by the tense cloud of looming EC2 exam. We had to work on Sunday and late in Monday to finish our project. After EC2 EC3, EC4 and EC5 came at such a pace that I could barely recall anything from then except for random memories. This brings us to Thombya.

Thombya is a Marathi word which is used to refer dumb people. ShaB nick-named MS as Thombya. We used to call him that because of his too short short-time memory and his unusual goof ups. One of his classic goof ups is when after having a cupful of tea he exclaims – It was nice coffee! He actually thought he was drinking coffee when he was actually having tea! He opts to remain quite most of the time, but he has a lot of mischievous ideas running through his head all the time.

After our EC3 exam, many of us planned for a trip to Velli, Kovalam Beach etc. I was looking forward to it as it was our last trip together. On the day of trip even after repeated request from me SD refused to come along. This made me adamant and I too ultimately didn’t go and sulked the whole day in the hotel. Yup, I make stupid decisions when I go adamant. Few minutes later we were scolded on the phone by SA. Oops! That day in the evening SD, MS, ShaB and NG paid a visit to an Ayurvedic Kerela Message center. There they got a lot more than they had bargained for, in particular NG. When they told MA and me what more happened there we had the laugh of a lifetime. I would not discuss it here, because it may embarrass them and there is no modest way of writing it here. One thing is for sure I am never getting a Kerela Message now, nor do I think they will ever try it again.

With this our EC4 and EC5 exams were over sooner than we could realize. After our allocation most of my mumbaiya friends grew a little depressed since only two of them, SD and NG, got Mumbai, rest were allocated Hyderabad. I got my place of choice, Kolkata, but the thought that I will have to part ways with them and don’t know when our paths will cross again, dampened my spirit. I wasn’t feeling happy and felt glum. Damn! I am back to square one. There has been so many times that I had to part ways with so many of my friends, but I felt this glum only once before this, because this time I have the feeling that this bond will snap sooner or later.

We all eight were supposed to return from Trivandrum to Mumbai together via train, but later MA, SB and SA chose flight. Our first day of our two day journey to Mumbai was mostly boring and glum. I don’t know why but we were again and again singing “Yeh tara woh tara har tara” in totla voice even when SB was not around to get teased. The second day of trip was great. Everybody was in form that day and the scenic beauty on the way was breathe taking. There were fifty plus tunnels on the way. NG, ShaB and MS had a great time screaming from the door into the tunnels when the train passed through them. At Thane we bid adieu to ShaB, NG and MS. At LTT I bid adieu to SD and that was it. The end of one month’s memories. Maybe ILP could have been a little longer.