Rationalize Motor Vehicle Tax Rates: Joshi

Tuesday, 14 February 2012, 16:45 IST
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New Delhi: To reduce transaction and logistic costs in the transportation sector, C.P. Joshi, Road Transport and Highways Minister, urged state governments to rationalize motor vehicle tax rates to facilitate easy movement of vehicles across the country. "There is an urgent need to rationalize the Motor Vehicle Taxes in order to make the road transport system in the country hassle free and for seamless movement of goods and tourists vehicles," Joshi said at the 34th meeting of the transport development council. The development assumes significance as currently, there is a large variation in motor vehicle taxes, base and methodology of collection. According to Joshi, the sector has to adopt Information Technology (IT) solutions for providing seamless movement of vehicles across states which will reduce transaction costs involved in the movement of goods. "With this objective in mind, there is a need to rationalize the existing motor vehicle taxation system in order to reap benefits of technology," Joshi said. The ministry has achieved the task of connecting and computerization of data base of all RTOs (Regional Transport Office) in every state and union territory. The ministry also launched the national register and national transport portal were launched in July, 2011. Joshi further informed the participants that the government's earlier decision for introduction of new national permit scheme is running efficiently with the help of NIC (National Informatics Centre), State Bank of India and principal accounts office of the ministry. Joshi also emphasized on the need for greater attention on road safety and said that a meeting of national road safety council will be convened and that the state governments are requested to come up with concrete action plans in mitigating the road accidents. "Taking into consideration that India has one of the highest road accidents in the world, it is high time that road safety measures get due priority by the State Governments in their future plans."
Source: IANS