Bhubaneswar/Cuttack: Even 40 days after the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes by the NDA government at the Centre, there is no let-up in the sufferings of people due to the cash crunch. The move has also severely affected
several sectors with tax collection of regional transport offices (RTOs) in 30 districts drastically falling. According to reports, demonetisation has jolted the economic backbone of the people, who have been going through a harrowing time after losing their purchasing power. Even the state exchequer has been badly affected with registration fee collection at RTOs having been reduced by half.
Registration fee collected from new vehicles forms a major chunk of revenue in RTOs. As a result, revenue collection at RTOs has fallen to a considerable extent after demonetisation of the high value currency notes, it was learnt.
According to reports, RTOs charge something between Rs 2,600 and Rs 3,000 towards registration of a two-wheeler, while the registration fee for a four-wheeler is anything between Rs 30,000 and Rs 40,000.
Likewise, the government gets Rs 3 lakh to Rs 7 lakh towards registration fee for each luxury car. However, the currency ban has come as a sort of undeclared restriction on purchase of new vehicles.
Besides, the move has reportedly restricted the people from using their hard-earned money for their daily expenses. To make matters worse, people fail to withdraw money from their accounts with banks and ATMs running out of cash in a few hours.
The adverse effects of demonetisation can be gauged from the volume of revenue
collection in 25 RTOs in 30 districts of the state.
In October, Cuttack RTO had collected Rs 9,75,11,418 towards revenue, but its collection sharply came down to Rs 5,76,89,496 in November. In case of Bhubaneswar RTO-I, revenue collected in October was Rs 12,95,50,937 while it plummeted to Rs 9,46,91,218 in November. Jajpur RTO had collected Rs 6,37,79,531 in October while it came down to Rs 1,58,04,977 in November. Likewise, Chhatrapur RTO collected Rs 10.31 crore in October but it fell to Rs 8.63 crore in November.
The revenue collection in October at Rourkela RTO was Rs 5.83 crore, but it came down sharply to Rs 3.43 core in November. The situation at other RTOs is more or less the game, it was learnt. For some time, the government had relaxed the use of invalid Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes for tax deposits. During that period, the RTOs had managed to collect tax to some extent. However, things changed drastically after the government discontinued the use of invalid notes.
The severe fall in revenue collection in November has caused loss to the state exchequer.
In November, the revenue collection in all RTOs decreased by 67.7 per cent. The growth rate in monthly revenue collection in October was 12.5 per cent, which came down to 5.2 per cent in November.
“If the situation does not improve, revenue collection in days ahead will sharply fall,” said transport minister Ramesh Majhi. He noted that as people are cash-strapped, purchase of new vehicles has taken a hit. Sale of two-wheelers is going on to some extent, but there are no takers for four-wheelers, Majhi added.
Transport commissioner DS Kute said revenue collection is on, but it will be clear whether it has increased or decreased only after reviewing the situation. PNN