ADVERTISEMENTS and mobile phone applications are the new fad and the new farce. A half-page colour advertisement in half a dozen newspapers could easily cost a few million rupees.

Because it is paid from public exchequer, one needs to be prudent and cautious. There is often a thin line between facts and façade.

The Sindh government’s recent half-page advertisement in newspapers regarding vehicle registration is redundant and thoughtless. Instead of improving the archaic vehicle registration and payment process, the advertisement tells us about the addition of a few more torturous steps. Customers must now log in to a website, fill a form, seek an appointment, await an SMS, carry proof of appointment, print out the reservation and then go to the excise and taxation department to do exactly all those things in exactly the same bureaucratic way as they were done 70 years ago.

The Sindh excise and taxation department should understand that it is travelling back in time and adding to the misery of their customers. It could easily have a system where all vehicle registration and yearly taxes are paid without anyone going to any government office.

Have they not heard of several mobile money transfer services?

Naeem Sadiq

Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2020