A Focus group discussion (FGDs) is a discussion conversation that includes gathering individuals from comparable foundations or encounters together to examine a particular subject interest. Bikalpa-An Alternative organizes such FGDs meetings on the basis to gather clear insights to work on the ongoing research areas. The main objective of Focus Group Discussion i.e.FGDs is to select the individual by the researcher to address a subject based on the similarity of their experiences. Therefore, to conduct a study on “Motorcycle License Issue in Province 1”, 10 participants who faced the hurdles in the motorcycle license issue were identified and invited for the FGDs meeting. The event was held at the Bikalpa office on the 12th of March,2021.

The event was facilitated by Basanta Adhikari, director of Bikalpa-An Alternative with Shristika Neupane, Researcher Officer at Bikalpa who is going to work on the Motorcycle license issue paper. Following the topic, the floor was opened for discussion.

According to the participants, a Motorcycle is a basic need of the public to ease their daily basis work by commuting, traveling short or long destination and so on. But they have to face a lot of problems from a root level to issue a license which leads them to use their motorcycle without a license. Following are the sectors where they faced the problem in issuing license which is as follows:-

FORM-FILLING ISSUE

• The very first criteria i.e filling the form for a license takes a long process. People don’t even get able to fill up the form by taking a leave from work standing in the long queue even for a whole day.

• The server for filling the online form is always slow and worked only at midnight for a few minutes/hour which brings hurdles to the public to fill up even the online form

• People are not able to fill the online form from home itself due to server down and can only filled it on the driving institute which demands Rs2000 and somewhere even more just to fill the form which should be free of cost.

• Even to fill up the online form there is a setting with the driving institute so that the public would be forced to fill the form by paying charges.

TRIAL ISSUE

• After filling the license form usually, people have to wait for a year to give the trial examination which costs a tremendous time for the public in getting a license

• To give the trial exam people has to wait in a long queue of line basically a whole day directly under the sun to attempt a trial exam

• Despite having experience in driving a motorbike fluently for many years, people still fail the trial examination stating lame excuses by the traffick police due to which the public are forced to use their motorbikes without a license

• According to the participants, out of 100%, only about 20% passed the trial exam where most of them are from a quota system, and about only 3% pass all the criteria of the trial exam and get the license

• Due to only one trial spot for province1, the public has to travel a mile and wait in a long queue line just to give a trial exam which even lowers the energy of the participant that ultimately leads them to fail the trial exam due to tiredness.

• Some driving institutions scammed people by charging them a heavy amount assuming to get them a license but at the time of trial, they get rejected which leads them to heavy loss.

• While giving the trial exam, the traffic instructors don’t even alert the participants about minor mistakes before attempting for trial just to intentionally fail him/her.

LICENSE RENEWAL ISSUE

• License renewal can be a very hectic job. One should be able to renew the license every 5 years from all over Nepal, irrespective of the original place from where it was issued. In today’s context, people need to travel to the same city just to renew the license. To a lot of people who leave the city and migrate to a new city, this can be a serious issue. One cannot travel every 5 years just to renew the license, and if we fail to do so we are subject to a heavy fine and in extreme cases, the license may also get revoked.

SMART CARD DRIVING LICENSE ISSUE

• License holders get the smart card license at the time of renewal of issued license i.e. smart card license took a lot of time to arrive.

• The identity of a smart cardholder cannot be justified due to the usage of cheap material on the card.

• In Nepal, there is not enough machine to identify the smart card license but still, the public is forced to make a smart card license because of invalidity of paper license.

Therefore, according to the participant’s review, it is really hard to issue a license in Nepal due to which people are forced to use their motorbike without a license by paying a fine to the police. Many are forced to leave their job (mostly those who gets involved in marketing or traveling work ) due to license issue. Due to the poor system, people are forced to drive a motorcycle without a license, but if caught by the traffic constable, they will be locked up in jail, which ultimately ruins their future due to legal actions. So, the trial spot should be increased to ease the participants in order to save their time and energy as well as there should be fewer, quick, and easy criteria for getting and renewing the license. So, to solve the issue, there should be clear action on this matter by raising a voice against this issue.