Senior Congress leader and AICC media in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala on Friday demanded the withdrawal of steep hike in the Motor Vehicle tax rate and described it as yet another anti-people decision of State BJP Government.

Surjewala said the Manohar lal Khattar government is continuously burdening the people of the state with tax hikes, while the common-man was already facing the huge inflation.

Khattar Government has imposed economic burden on people through the tax rate hike for ordinary bus, ordinary AC bus, deluxe or luxury AC bus and educational institutions vehicles, said Surjewala, an MlA from Haryana.

He said the huge increase in motor vehicle tax rates would adversely affect all the people using public transport, school buses, three wheelers and all other motor vehicles. Surjewala severely condemned the imposition of motor vehicle taxes on the motor vehicles of educational institutions in the State, which were earlier totally exempted from the motor vehicle taxes.

The families of school & college students would have to bear the burden for the taxes imposed by the State Government, which ranges from 3,600 to 18,000 rupees per annum on normal and AC buses belonging to the educational institutions, he said.

Special Purpose Vehicles including Mobile Clinic, X-Ray Van and library Van have been made liable to pay motor vehicle tax of Rs 500 per day or Rs 11,000 per month, the Congress added.

Surjewala reminded that the Khattar Government had earlier imposed huge hike on registration of new vehicles, which has made the new vehicles costlier and dearer for the people. Apart from this, the BJP Government of the Centre and the state had imposed huge hike in excise and VAT rates on petrol and diesel, which has made petrol and diesel costlier. The BJP government of Haryana increased the VAT rates on petrol from 21 to 26.25 per cent and increased VAT on diesel from 9.24 to 17.22 per cent, said he.

Similarly, the Central Government had increased the excise duty on petrol by 133% and the increased excise on diesel by 400 percent. It is the reason that people are paying more for diesel and petrol despite the international prices of crude oil being half in comparison to the UPA Government, added  the Congress leader.