The government of India has been mulling over abolishing the practice of availing NOC, paying road tax again when a vehicle gets transferred from one state to another. In its quest to ease procedural hold-ups and to stem the onset of corruption at local levels, the government is considering an online portal for interstate transfer where the NOC will be automatically generated.
Also, another big hindrance and cost for the vehicle owner are paying up road tax again along with the registration fees in the new state. The high costs involved and the dependence on RTO leads to unease along with evasion in most cases. To counter this, the central government has proposed that road tax can be waived where the car is more than two years old or if the difference between the road taxes of the two states is less than 2 per cent.
Transport ministers of almost 12 states have agreed to work towards such a solution back in April and a GoM has been constituted to recommend reforms to the state ministries under which the RTOs function. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has created two online databases Vahan and Sarathi to get the entire automotive population in the country on one platform which will help seamless transfer across the country.
Also, the central government is mulling on standardising road tax across the country so that the differential question does not arise. Since it is a tax-related issue, the GST council has been roped in. As per reports, the GST council has proposed three slabs – 8 per cent for vehicles under Rs 10 lakhs, 10 per cent for Rs 10 lakhs to 20 lakhs and 12 per cent for the cars priced above Rs 20 lakhs.
Since these recommendations are subject to agreement from the states, humungous delays are a certainty before a consensus is reached. But at least a step in the right direction has been initiated.
