For the defaulters of vehicle taxes the ride is going to get bumpier in future as the department of Transport is mulling to introduce a reward system to encourage people for people who will help the department in bringing such offenders to book. The system is likely to address the need to track people who cause loss of revenue to the Government and go traceless.
“The award for the informer will depend on the quantum of taxes due on an offender,” said Secretary Transport MR Meena. The provisions under consideration will allow the department to distribute monetary award to an informer besides maintaining secrecy about the informer. Interestingly, taking a leaf out of Police’s book the department is likely to create secret service funds to maintain the amount intended to be distributed to an informer.
Though the concept is still in nascent stage officials feel that it will bring losses significantly down when implemented on ground.Earlier on Thursday, the department launched an online tracking system for vehicles that will provide details of a vehicle registered in the State after 2005. The system was inaugurated by Transport Minister Champai Soren.
“Our objective is to provide better service to the people of the State,” said Soren after inaugurating the online system. The software has been developed by the department in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) at the behest of Chief Secretary RS Sharma. The NIC will maintain the data besides uploading details of a vehicle. The application is touted to help in improving tax collection as well playing a crucial role in extracting details of road accident victims.
Interestingly, the application which is available only on Android based mobile phones will provide information like owner’s name, address, chassis number, engine number, type of vehicle, tax status, fitness validity, hypothecation details of a vehicle upon entering the registration number. “The service will be available only on Android however we will try to make it available on other platforms as well,” added Meena.