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    11 views8 pages

    New Doc 01-03-2023 14.02

    Uploaded by

    Chetan Randhawa

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Transport Department, Civil Secretariat, J&K, Jammu. Subject: Minutes of Meeting held on 02-01-2023 under the Chairmanship of Secretary to the Government, Transport Department. A meeting to discuss the issues related to transporters were held under the chairmanship of Secretary to the Government, Transport Department on 02-01-2023 at 12:30 PM in his office chamber at the behest of transporters. Following officers attended the meeting:- 1. Transport Commissioner, J&K 2. Additional Secretary to the Government, Transport Department 3. RTO, Jammu. Besides, transport Unions along with Chairman, All J&K Transporters Welfare Association Sh. Ajeet Singh along with other Presidents of different segment of transport vehicles, also attended the meeting. A patient hearing was given to the transporters who discussed various issues being encountered by them in day-to-day functioning of transport sector viz-a-viz Motor Vehicles Department. The following issues were highlighted in the meeting and after threadbare discussion/deliberation with the representative of Transporter unions, the following decisions were taken for redressing each grievance: - Issues Decision “1 [Roll back notification S.O. 653|Subject matter: This is dated: 05-12-2022 for steep hike in| ragarding penalty for delay taxes, penalties, fines in respect of |. : all types of commercial vehicles. in the renewal of permits by the holders. @ scanned with OKEN Scanner Tt was decided that the fine/penalty to be imposed on the holders of permits for failure to get the same renewed within the stipulated time shall be as per the following method:- a. The calculation of the penalty from the date from which the renewal was due as per the extant rules, till 5th of December,2022, shall be calculated as per the rates notified by SRO 65 dated 22.02.1999. b. The remainder of the penalty shall be charged as per the rates notified vide SO 653; from 6th of December, 2022, till 31st of March, 2023; which shall be the last date for considera-ion of renewal of permits which are overdue for the same. c. All those permit holders whose permits are due for renewal, but fail to do so by or before 31st of March, 2023. shall lose their permits ipso-facto, The Transport — Commissioner, J&K shall ensure that all such permits are revoked. Rationale: Because of the losses incurred by the transporters due to COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant economic slump, this step is taken as a one-time relief measure. @ scanned with OKEN Scanner Release of blacklisted passenger commercial vehicles due to passenger tax at the earliest:- It is to bring into your kind notice that for depositing the token tax, The passenger tax is mandatory to be filled early hand, as token tax cannot be submitted independently. Due to this the vehicle are unable to ply since passenger tax submission is scrutinized and reviewed by the department owing to its quarterly payment and many other reasons like server is down as well their long quees on the filling counters of RTO Office. The UT Govt. has authorized the RTO Department to collect the passenger tax by offline mode from 1.4.2018 to 31.3.2020 from all passenger commercial vehicles and it was mandatory to renew the route permit of the vehicles. And after that it was shifted to online mode from March 2021. During that conversion the lapse in the document and passenger tax occurred. As we want to give some information that on 30th March 2022 we requested the J&K UT Govt. that we cannot pay the passenger tax altogether and the Govt. agreed with our demand the UT Govt. has issued notification SO- 234 in exercise of the powers conferred by section 10 of the J&K Passenger and taxation act 1963. The Govt. hereby waive / exempt 50% of the passenger tax from period 1.4.2020 to 31.3.2022. And also ordered to the RTO department that the outstanding passenger tax for the financial year 2018-19 to 2019 to 2022 shall be recovered from the owners of commercial vehicles in 4 equal installments on quarterly basis w.e.f, 1.4.2022. But the NIC Vahan portal demand the passenger tax upto 31.3.2023 in advance which abolish the Govt. order of quarterly payment which is quite strange. We the transporters wish to enquire the dubious policy ‘Subject matter: This is regarding the alleged irregularities noticed in the collection and deposition of passenger tax; and probable misappropriation of the same by officials of the Motor Vehicles Depurtment between the time period 2018, till the collection was made online. RTO, Jammu has blacklisted many commercial vehicles on account of mismatch of the passenger taxes due and deposited. The Transporters/permit holders averred that the passenger tax due from them has been deposited well in time, but due to malfeasance of the officials much less entry has been made in the official ledger/counter foil. The Transport Commissioner, J&K has already requested for a special audit, and the same shall be soon underway. Since the transporters claim that many of them, if not all have proof of payment of the passenger tax paid to the officials of the Motor Vehicles Department; and since it is very difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the veracity of this claim it was decided that the benefit of the doubt shall be given to the transporters/permit holders. The procedure to be followed by the Motor Vehicles Department in giving effect to this decision shall be the following:~ a. The Transporters/ Permit holders shall deposit the relevant GR/original passbook, either _in @ scanned with OKEN Scanner with us. It is matter of concern to be scrutinized. It is inappropriate to blacklist the vehicle of the transporters, as it delays the permit renewal, fitness certificate, filling of token tax, temporary permission etc. an extension period could have helped both the department and the transporter to distinguish the vehicle who need to be blacklisted and suffer. Hence, we request the J&K UT Govt. to grant us period of next 6 months and remove our vehicles from blacklist immediately from Vahan portal. person, or through an authorized representative. implementation of this decision a fresh self | attestation made by the permit holder in a plain paper appended along- with the GR/pass book should be considered as the authorization. Department shall calculate the passenger tax due in and check if it is equal to amount declared as having been deposited by the permit holder in the relevant GR/passbook by | permit holder as per rules, } | Department. In case two figures are equal, the Motor Vehicles | Department, within a | period of seven days shall remove the concerned vehicle from the list of the blacklisted vehicles. In case two amounts are unequal then necessary steps shall be taken to recover the differential | amount, along-with penalties as per rules. concerned RTO shail ensure that_—such deposition of GR/pass book is made directly with the purposes of. Motor Vehicles instant case of the Motor Vehicles this purpose the @ scanned with OKEN Scanner him/her and the depositor is not made to visit any one else in this regard, The RTO concerned shall maintain a register exclusively for recording the name(s) of the depositor and/or the permit holder, the vehicle registration number and the appropriate signature, and promptly upload the same online. Furthermore, the RTO concerned shall be responsible for keeping all the aforementioned documents safe, as they have evidentiary value in the future course of events. The actions based on this decision shall be subject to revision based on the facts found by the special audit aforementioned, departmental enquiry and any police investigation that the government might deem fit to order in future. Rationale: It is primarily the responsibility of government official to ensure compliances with the mandatory and appropriate procedures, especially in such serious matters as collection of taxes. Since the culpability of the offenders is not established beyond doubt _at this stage, @ scanned with OKEN Scanner burdening the holders of proof of payment of the due passenger tax (transporters/permit holders) with punitive measures like blacklisting is deemed unjust. VLTD was mandatory from 1.8.2022 but control system for monitoring panic button in VLTD is non functional till date:- In a meeting conducted on “30th March 2022 headed by Div Com Jammu and Transport Commissioner. An extension period of 4 months was granted for installation of VLTD. On 1,8.2022 it became compulsory to install VLTD for passing of vehicles to fitness certificates renewed. According to the MORTH the functioning of the panic button Is necessary in VLTD else it is just @ hanging box which costs an additional cost to the owners. But til now, the control system for operation of panic button is not working. If the Govt. was not prepared at their level, how can they make it mandatory for the transporters. The Govt. should come with all its preparation done early as they now seem to be just hanging boxes of VLTD that costs around Rs 410000/- to us which is useless for installation of this device, The Govt. is sleeping for the installation of control system which was a safety step for any Kind of risk for passengers as panic button is not working. The NIC Vahan portal has granted vacant free of cost to All Over India. But the J&K UT continues to be expensive as BSNL costing Rs. 1600/- per year for renew the VLTD Device. We appeal to the UT Govt, to Secretary, Transport Department was made to understand that the monitoring centre in the office of Transport Commissioner, Jammu, under the NIRBHAYA SCHEME shall not be made fully functional, for at least two more months; in absentia of which it is illogical to force the transporters for installation of VLTD for the following reasons:- a. Without the establishment of a functional network, for which the monitoring centre | will be the sine-qua-non; existence of unconnected VLTDs serve no purpose. b.For the aforementioned reason, it is inappropriate to require permit holders to install VLTDs as in the absence of a functional network, the necessary features of VLTDs like compatibility, durability etc cannot be tested. Therefore a situation could arise in the near future where the network is made functional but the already installed VLTDs prove useless from disuse or the aforementioned reasons. So it was decided that @ scanned with OKEN Scanner Tenew our fitness certificate from 1.1.2023 without VLTD Device and to make VLTD compulsory only after they are ready to operate the panic button. Transporters shall not be obligated to install the VLTDs till the monitoring centre becomes fully functional. Order for collection of passenger tax from all passenger vehicles ‘on quarterly basis not in one year advance:- It is to bring into your kind notice that the passenger tax as decided by the department is to be taken on quarterly basis as a survey from our neighbouring states was conducted by the MVD. Even after the approval in the meeting the problem for filling of passenger tax continues as Vahan portal demands in one year advance from vehicles. It is requested to goodself kindly issue directions to your department to go through the minutes of meeting and The matter of charging the passenger tax quarterly basis as demanded by the Transporters instead of annually shall be taken up with the Government. adhere to order issued at the earliest. _ Replacement of commercial | It was decided that no vehicle of les of surrender pending below passenger vel permits are sti the age of 10 years of commercial vehicles: According the Motor Vehicle Act the replacement policy of vehicle can be upgraded from lower model to upgraded vehicles (for e.g. 2002 model route permit can be surrender and applied for the replacement from. its up model vehicle e.g. 2005) The Govt. state administrative committee has given us a life period of commercial vehicle upto 20 years in Jammu & Srinagar districts. So, how can they limit the period of replacement of vehicles upto 10 years old, This will result in huge loss of permit and old vehicles. Most of the transporters are not in a age 10 years and above shall be allowed, through replacement with the pre-existing permit. Rationale: Encouraging the old vehicles to be allowed through replacement with the pre- existing permit would be against the guidelines of the doing away with of the old vehicle by the Government of India (8 years for commercial and 15 years for non commercial vehicles) and would also act as a hindrance in adopting new fuel efficient/electric vehicle. @ scanned with OKEN Scanner osit ica a ne Tot ae womens Se] g SS. So the Feplacement is very necessary to run the vehicles in a smooth and an efficient manner. The economically weak people will suffer total loss, Hence, the old policy was feasible and beneficial to run the vehi smooth manner. 6 ee Problem faced in operating | Transport Commissioner, J&K n ‘ahan Portal from outside Regional Transport Officer, internet sources and many backlogs |jammu to redress the issue in Of route permits are still pending. coordination with the in-charge Transport in NIC at an earliest otherwise the issue will escalated to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). 7 | Rapid increase of fitness fee on all| The matter is under active commercial vehicles who have above | consideration. the age of 15 years and there should be limit for fitness fee fines for all commercial vehicle. Meeting ended with vote of thanks to the ct sb “ge Oo? |

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