31K vehicle owners yet to pay road tax in Sonepat

Mukesh Tandon

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Sonepat, April 22

The Regional Transport Office (RTO), Sonepat, initiated action against owners of commercial vehicles who have failed to deposit annual road tax till April 1.

The RTO has to collect Rs 169.51 crore as road tax from owners of 31,841 commercial vehicles. In several cases, the dues have been pending for the past five years. The RTO has served notices on 200 defaulters who have the maximum outstanding tax payment.

Registration of vehicles to be suspended

A list of defaulters has been prepared. If the owners don’t deposit the pending dues after getting notices, their identity would be made public and the registration of vehicles would be suspended or cancelled. Shambhu Rathi, Regional Transport Officer, Sonepat

Regional Transport Officer Shambhu Rathi said, “The department is planning to serve notices to over 10,000 more defaulters. We have also suspended the registration of around 98 vehicles. It will not be restored until they deposit the pending tax.”

Of the total vehicles that are operating without paying the road tax, 22,322 are goods carrier vehicles (medium and heavy commercial vehicles). The owners of these vehicles owe Rs 163.26 crore to the RTO. The department also has to collect Rs 2.14 crore from owners of 3,330 taxi vehicles, Rs 1.21 crore from 851 buses, Rs 1.50 crore from 2,134 e-rickshaws and Rs 68.5 lakh taxes from 716 earth moving equipment. The rest of the amount is to be collected from vehicles in all other categories.

A source in the department said many of these vehicles were plying without renewed fitness certificates. He added that the number of defaulters increased during the Covid era as the commercial vehicle owners had to suffer huge losses.

“The government had provided relaxation to the vehicle owners by giving rebate on depositing the yearly road taxes but the scheme has failed,” he added.

Rathi said, “The higher authorities of the department are insisting on recovering the pending road tax. A list of defaulters has been prepared.”

If the owners don’t deposit the pending dues after getting notices, their identity would be made public and the registration of vehicles would be suspended or cancelled, the RTO added.

Govt provided rebate

• The number of defaulters increased during the Covid era as the commercial vehicle owners had to suffer huge losses
• The government provided relaxation to the vehicle owners by giving rebate on depositing the annual road tax but the scheme had failed, said RTO source