SHILLONG, MAY 27: The Meghalaya cabinet has approved a one-time settlement scheme slashing fitness certificate penalties by 90%, after calculations showed notional dues of nearly Rs 900 crore had piled up against truckers over the last 20 years.
“The cabinet has approved) introduction of one-time settlement scheme for waiver and reduction of penalties relating to motor vehicle taxes, passengers and goods taxes fitness fees,” Sangma said after chairing the meeting.
He said the penalty for not having a fitness certificate was disproportionate to the actual fee.
“The fitness certificate fees is about Rs1200 annually, the penalty were not having this is Rs50 rupees per day which means if you don’t renew it, you end up spending almost close to about Rs18000 rupees just as penalty piling up,” he said.
“So, you can imagine if there is a truck which is not renewed it for the last 20 years, you have almost close to Rs3 lakhs of fees that piles for that particular driver or that particular vehicle owner,” he added.
Sangma said the total notional penalty burden was massive.
“So, in our basic calculation, we could see that if you just put the calculation of the penalties alone, especially when it comes to the penalties of no fitness certificate, the amount if we were to calculate for all the trucks and vehicles, the amount would come up just of the penalties alone at about Rs 900 crores,” he said.
“This is just a ball park figure we have and similarly if you look at the figures for MV tax is about Rs 21 crores and if you look at the figures for the goods and passengers is about Rs5 crores and as I said if look at the figures for the penalty is about Rs 900 crores,” he added.
Calling the penalties “irrational”, he said, “So, the fees though being rational, the penalties were something they were quite irrational, I should say and that is an amount is set up by the government of India.”
To ease the burden on local transporters, the cabinet decided on steep waivers.
“We have decided in the cabinet that we will be exempting as a onetime settlement will be exempting 90% for the penalty for no fitness certificate, and for the MV tax and the goods passengers’ tax, we will be exempting 80% from one time settlement,” Sangma said.
He said the move would help transporters regularise. “This will allow the different drivers and different commercial vehicle owner’s, at least the space to then be able to come back to normalcy and will not put financial stress and burden on them, and we will be able to then regularise and monitor the future registrations and future fitness certificates in a proper manner,” he said.
Sangma stressed that most affected were local citizens. “Almost you can say, 100% of these truck owners’ drivers are all local people. They are all our own citizens and therefore, if you not able to find a solution to this, it will lead to a huge loss in terms of livelihood and financial stress for our own people,” he said.
