Shillong, May 27: In a major relief for vehicle owners owing huge traffic dues, the state government has decided to slash fitness certificate penalties by 90% through a one-time settlement scheme, following notional penalties calculated up to Rs 900 crore over the past 20 years.
Announcing the decision after a cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said the penalty for not having a fitness certificate was disproportionate to the actual fee.
Annual fitness certificate fees is about Rs 1,200 and the penalty for not having it is Rs 50 per day.
“If you don’t renew it, you end up spending almost close to about Rs 18,000 just as penalty piling up,” he said.
“So, you can imagine if there is a truck which has not renewed it for the past 20 years, you have almost close to Rs 3 lakhs of fees that piled ,juat particular driver or that particular vehicle owner,” he added.
Sangma said the total notional penalty burden was massive.
The amount of penalties, especially of no fitness certificate, for all trucks and vehicles would come to about Rs 900 crore, he said.
“This is just a ball park figure we have and similarly if you look at the figures for MV tax, it is about Rs 21 crore and if you look at the figures for the goods and passengers, it is about Rs 5 crores and as I said if look at the figures for the penalty, it is about Rs 900 crore,” he added.
Calling the penalties “irrational”, he said, “So, the fees though being rational, the penalties were something they were quite irrational… that is an amount set up by the government of India.”
Explaining the cabinet decision, he said, “A onetime settlement will be exempting 90% of the penalty for no fitness certificate, and for the MV tax and the goods passengers’ tax, we will be exempting 80% from onetime settlement,” Sangma said.
Expecting that the move would help regularise transporters, he said, “This will allow the different drivers and commercial vehicle owners to come back to normalcy… it will not put financial stress and burden on them… 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 and drivers are all local people. They are all our own citizens and therefore, if you are 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.
