New Year this time might not be pleasant for tax defaulting vehicle owners, as the Transport Department in Assam’s Darrang district is all set to conduct intensive revenue drives.
With the extended tax waive period due to end on December 31, the Darrang District Transport Office (DTO) is pulling up its socks against vehicle tax defaulters.
“We are a revenue earning department. We already lost a vital revenue earning period this year due to COVID-19. Vehicle owners availed the tax relaxation period as offered by the Government. It will get over on December 31. Our job will be to identify tax defaulters on the roads and penalise them,” said Kumar Sanjib Krishna, Darrang District Transport Officer, while speaking to Northeast Now.
However, the Darrang Transport Department is leaving no stone unturned to raise awareness among the people of the district on the need of paying their pending vehicle taxes.
“We don’t want to see any vehicle owner being tagged as a tax defaulter and face penalty. Thus, we have tried to reach out to each and every vehicle owner and remind them about their pending taxes. We are reaching out to them via different means of communication,” DTO Krishna added.
Also read: Major re-shuffle in Assam Police top brass
Meanwhile, several transport unions in the district have hailed the step taken by the Darrang District Transport Department.
“The move of the Darrang District Transport Officer, has woke up us well ahead of time,” said Munindra Kumar Dutta, President of Darrang-Kamrup Besarkari Bus Malik Santha.
The revenue records of the district transport office in the fiscal year 2019-20 has shown a remarkable improvement with an achievement of nearly 80% against the target in comparison to that of around 67% in the previous fiscal year.
With only three months left before the current fiscal ends, the officials of the district transport office are staring at a herculean task of reaching somewhere near their target.