Coimbatore: After much delay and inconvenience, private transport operators across Coimbatore district get relief in the road tax issue.
Coimbatore: After much delay and inconvenience, private transport operators across Coimbatore district get relief in the road tax issue.
After March 24, 2020, due to the lockdown implementation private transport operators were forced to stop all the vehicle movements. In spite of the relaxations given, Government asked to pay the road tax for the vehicles.
Since vehicles were not operated, some omni bus owners filed case in the court seeking exemption from paying the road tax for the months during which the vehicles were not operated due to lockdown implementation. In this situation, the relaxations given under the lockdown from November 1, helped private transport also to commence.
Since there was no clear circular issued to RTOs regarding the tax adjustments, many private vehicle operators did not operate their vehicles. In this situation on November 7, transport commissioner has given a circular to the RTOs which will help the operators to avail tax adjustments. This has given relief to the transport operators after delay and in convenience.
A Mini bus operator while speaking to SimpliCity, "The delay in passing the order has made a huge inconvenience to all the private vehicle operators. Some vehicles reached time for FC. If tax dues are not cleared FC will not be done. Considering the welfare of the operators I sent requests to the Transport commissioner, Deputy commissioner, Chennai. In those messages, I clearly mentioned that there is no proper guidelines for tax adjustment, Insurance premium adjustment, FC to be done or extended upto December 31st and to not give FC if reflective tape fixed outside etc.
Stating these information I requested the officials to pass clear orders to the respective RTOs and upload it in the TNSTA website for public view. After a long wait, we have finally received the order. But from November 1 till today many transport vehicles were not able to operate. Wonder who will be held responsible for this inordinate delay?" she added.
"The important thing to note is, before this order has been distributed, the tax adjustment was done in Bhavani RTO office citing the motor vehicle tax act.
This is an already existing act but not followed by the transport department. My doubt is why other RTOs in Tamilnadu not adhering to that rule?" she said.
"The order has been delayed by one and half month even after the government has relaxed the lockdown from November 1, 2020. Anyway at last its a great relief to the transport operators."She said.
Private Bus owners Association, President, Durai Kannan said, "From October 1, government again gave permission to restart the operation, some operators started operating by paying road tax for their vehicles, while some omni bus owners filed case in court. From the state governments side they suggested that the operators can show stoppage (for each 90 days) submitt parked vehicle report(PVR) and get tax exemption. Court also accepted it.
Almost all the operators have paid road tax for March, April and May 2020 for which April 15 was last date. Similarly for April, May and June, the last date for paying tax was May 15. July, August, September, the last date was July 15. So all of them paid the tax. Few days back the Transport Commissioner, Thenkasi Jawahar issued circular in which he has mentioned to avail adjustments of the tax which are already paid based on the PVR reports submitted by the transport operators as mentioned in the Tamilnadu motor vehicle taxation act 1974 sec 13(4). This has given a relief but after a huge delay and in convenience." he said.