Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Geared sale of cars vs RTO registration

  • High sale, low registration
Richeek Mishra
Agra. You can see lakh of wheels speeding on the roads and occasionly in a beautiful showrooms but you might not find them in the register of Regional Transport Office (RTO). The increasing number of vehicles occupy the city roads but RTO fails to register them properly.
The registration charges in the Uttar Pradesh are more than neighbouring states. RTO charges 2.5 percent as tax for petrol vehicles and 5 percent of diesel vehicles. Suppose if any one purchase petrol car worth 20 lakh, he has to pay 50 thousand as a tax in RTO. According to RTO around 10123 cars including small, premium and luxury are running in the city of Taj. Small cars rule the road of the city with score of 7774. Second position is occupied by premium class with 1356. Luxury cars (imported or assembled in India) are driven to the third position with a handful number of 19.
Customers of premium and luxury class range avoid paying taxes and levis in UP. Price range of such cars starts from Rs. 7 lakh onwards. They prefer neighbouring states for registration to save the tax money. According to the dealers Maruti Suzuki has sold around 8697 cars from 2005 till now while RTO has registered 6206 cars in this period. Similarly, Hyundai has sold 3559 cars in the same period and RTO has registered only 2586 cars. Brand wise, RTO has registered 88 Honda Civic and 37 Accord. In contrast the data differs company wise as RTO has registered 2 Civic and 5 Accord. Contradictory data of vehicles in the RTO is astonishing. The data is similar to all other premium and luxury class cars.
Talking to DLA am, dealers of various car brands said that the purchasing power of customer is increasing, because it is easy to afford small cars. Similarly, those who belongs to upper-middle class they can afford premium range cars easily. However they avoid registering their cars in the Uttar Pradesh as the taxes and levis are too high. For them registering the cars in neighbouring states is easy. They have to show their address proof, which is easily available there.
We have stopped providing temporary registrations, said RTO VK Sonakiya. Those who want to register their vehicles outside, they have to show the permanent address of the same state. It is true that taxes in neighbouring states are lower than UP, but we are unable to change the policies, added Sonakiya. Only administration and transport authorities can change the policies. Whatever may be, the main cause of avoiding the registration in the state is harsh policies and the levis fixed by state authorities. At local level we always try to resolve this problem and generate more and more revenue, he added.

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