Driving Licence and the Saga

Dear All,

I arrived in canada about an 3 months back. Initially I landed at Calgary as I had some of my relatives. As every one would have done, I also went through the process of getting my SIN Card, Bank account. The process was very simpler and no confusion.


I have been living outside india for about 9 years now and at arrival time, I held only Indian Driving Licence issued to be about 13 years back. As Countries which i lived before honored indian licence I never had to appy for one. When in USA, I had to apply and get an licence. Unfortunately my US licence is expired.

Now coming back to the story of Licence. I went to Registry at calgary and applied for Level 7 Licence and got that immediately after passing the test.
I dutifully surrendered my indian driving licence as part of process for obtaing level 5 operators licence.

A week later I got a call from transport minstry asking for a letter from Govt of India office attesting my driving licence.

I called up consultate general at vancouver and told them about what i need. The gentlemen at the consulate general said that they had stopped issuing letters on driving licence and nor do they do attestation.

Instead they asked me to go back to Regional Transport Authority and get a letter and go to delhi get attestation from External Ministry and get the copy to consulate general and they would issue a letter


Point is

1) How would a person from india in canada go back to RTO, in my case it was in Mysore and get letter from there
2) Submit it at External Ministry office in delhi and get it stamped
3) Submit this to our consulate general in vancouver and get a letter from them and then submit it to tranport dept in calgary.

Infact my friend who came from keneya(was working in keneya) approached Keneyan consultate and he was issued a letter after verifying the kenyan licence.


The question is why did our consultate gave me a not possible solution?? I am sure many people would have experienced the same.


Has any one got an practical solution for my problem??