Common tax on new vehicles mooted by ministers of five northern states

The transport ministers of five neighbouring northern states unanimously recommended a common tax on the purchase of new vehicles, passenger tax as well as collective efforts to enhance road safety here on Tuesday.

The ministers , members of the group of ministers (GoM) formed by the Union ministry of road transport and highways, who attended the meeting were Razia Sultana from Punjab, Kailash Gahlot from Delhi, Swatantra Dev Singh from Uttar Pradesh, Govind Singh Thakur from Himachal Pradesh and Krishan Lal Panwar of
Haryana.

Two ministers from Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, who are also members of the GoM, however, could not make it to the meeting.

The GoM also recommended identical roads, passenger and motor vehicle taxes and reciprocal common transport agreements, besides efforts to enhance road safety.

Briefing newspersons after the meeting, Panwar said the ministers strongly espoused that like goods and services tax (GST), there should also be a common tax on all the transport services and purchase of vehicles pan India.

There is a huge variation in tax structure across the states in the country because of which buyers purchase vehicles from the nearby states offering less taxes by giving “temporary address” thus causing losses to their own state, he said.

He said though all the participant ministers agreed to recommend a common tax, a final decision in the context would be taken at the meeting scheduled to be held in the near future in Delhi.

He, however, refused to give the date for the same.

Importantly enough, the ministers expressed in one voice their grave concern over the road mishaps and the lives lost in them.

Panwar said the Haryana government had decided to spend half of the revenue generated from the vehicles’ challans on various methods for road safety.

He held that it was in the wake of these methods, which included road repairs, involvement of several social organisations that the road mishaps had come down this year.

Swatantra Dev Singh also spelled out various steps taken by the Uttar Pradesh government to check the road rules violations, which included several hikes that were implemented in the fines for violations of road rules.

First Published: Jul 03, 2019 04:03 IST