August 26, 2008, is a date Vinayak Barve won’t forget in a hurry. It was the day his son bought a Rs-10 lakh Scorpio and proudly parked it outside his building in Girgaon, Mumbai. It was also the day the SUV got stolen—not to be seen again.

The vehicle was insured and the Barves got most of their money back. But the incident jolted the 62- year-old engineer, who now runs a computer business, into launching a one-man movement against stolen vehicles. Today, a year later, thanks to his campaign, the Bombay Motor Vehicles Act is all set for a major amendment concerning the refund of road tax in case of stolen vehicles. Also, a PIL is being readied to draw the attention of the government to some uncomfortable aspects of vehicle theft—the most common theft in the country. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, auto thefts accounted for 35.2 per cent of the total theft offences in 2007.

“There were two things that hurt, apart from the loss of the vehicle. One was that though we got most of our money back from the insurer, the Road Transport Office told us there was no provision of returning the one-time road tax of about Rs 69,000 that we had paid at the time of vehicle registration. Second, the vehicle had been stolen despite all the anti-theft devices like immobilisers that the car manufacturer had apparently installed and for which we had paid extra,” explains Barve, whose endless rounds of police stations, the RTO, insurance companies and the municipal corporation brought him face-to-face with another reality. “It dawned on me that there is no coordination between all these offices. That is why few stolen vehicles are recovered,” says Barve.

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