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Official apathy dents RTA revenue
The lower level staff, due to corruption prevailing among them, have been ignoring checking whether the owner previously owned a vehicle or not and it had resulted in non-collection of second vehicle tax. The State government on Thursday entrusted the responsibility to the Administrative Officer (AO) to check and clear the vehicle for registration.
​Hyderabad: The lower level staff, due to corruption prevailing among them, have been ignoring checking whether the owner previously owned a vehicle or not and it had resulted in non-collection of second vehicle tax. The State government on Thursday entrusted the responsibility to the Administrative Officer (AO) to check and clear the vehicle for registration.
Recently, the department discovered that hundreds of vehicles were registered as second vehicles but there was no payment of tax for the second vehicle. When the issue was brought to the notice of the Transport Minister P Mahender Reddy, he ordered an inquiry led by Transport Secretary Sunil Sharma.
It was found that there were irregularities in this regard during June 2014 to February 2015. Based on the inquiry report, notices were served to 72 RTA officials in the State asking them why they should not be suspended. Nine other officials of the department were suspended. The report said that the staff had colluded with some showrooms and registered vehicles without collecting the second vehicle tax.
It was found that the State exchequer was deprived of revenue of about Rs 2 crore. The staff and the showrooms, while registering vehicles, made certain changes like change in address to get exemption from paying the tax, sources said.
The government had brought the additional tax of 2 per cent on the life tax on the vehicle owners, who purchase second vehicle. This rule was brought in the State during 2008.
The idea was to discourage the individuals from going to additional vehicles and to control the vehicular pollution. Another main reason for the taxation was that several organisations, like education institutions, had more than one vehicle and every year 6,000 vehicles were being added onto the road.
The government on Thursday took a decision to make the AO and AO level officer responsible for checking the status whether the owner previously owned a vehicle. From now on, the vehicles would have to be cleared by the AOs after going through the tax column and then the registration process would be completed.
