The Haryana Government would soon introduce 'one time road tax' system for commercial vehicles in the State. The State Transport department has proposed 'one time road tax' system for commercial vehicles in the upcoming amended Motor Vehicle Taxation Act which would be named "Haryana Motor Vehicle Taxation Act 2013".
At present, 'one time road tax' system is applicable to private vehicles in the State.
While talking to The Pioneer, Bhupinder Singh, Additional Commissioner of Haryana Transport department said, "The department has prepared a draft, with number of amendments in the existing Act and it will be introduced with new name "Haryana Motor Vehicle Taxation Act 2013" soon.
He said, "At present, the State is following the rules and regulations under "Punjab Motor Vehicle Taxation Act 1924", which was formulated in the year 1924, more than 80 years ago, when there were few number of vehicles in the State. At that time, it was very easy to check the vehicles regularly, regarding collection of road taxes. Hence, the collection of road tax for commercial vehicles was also decided to be done on the quarterly basis."
"But now, when the number of vehicles increased manifold, it is very difficult to check all the commercial vehicles regularly, hence the State is witnessing pilferage in collection of taxes. Several owners of the commercial vehicles do not deposit their road taxes on time or deposit it late. Keeping this in view, there is an urgent necessity to bring some changes in existing Act, to stop pilferage of tax collection", added Singh.
He further said, "The copy of prepared draft has already been sent to the law department for legal vetting, which will be finalised in a couple of days, and then it will be presented in the upcoming Cabinet Meeting for final nod."
"We have also planned to give legal powers to our field officials in the new Act, who would be able to not only impose penalty on the defaulters, while checking the commercial vehicles on road, but would also have the powers to seize the vehicles on the spot, if found any violations of the rules," Singh added.
In Haryana, about six lakh vehicles of all types are registered in a year and 2500 vehicles in a day. The State Transport department has registered around 65 lakh vehicles till to date. In terms of tax collection, the Transport department has collected Rs 887 crore for all types of road taxes from vehicles in the last financial year as compared to Rs 277 crore in year 2009-10.