MUMBAI, 24 August 2007 — With Mumbai’s vehicular population zooming at a frenetic pace, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has proposed a new vehicle tax in Mumbai to arrest this growth.
“No matter how much improvement continues to be made for pedestrian’s safety, it still falls short of improving vehicular traffic in Mumbai. Therefore whether the imposition of a new vehicle tax would help decongest traffic in the city, the state government is thinking on this line of action,” Deshmukh said.
He said more than 500 vehicles are registered daily in Mumbai. It has now become necessary to think about elevated roads and elevated railways, he said, adding that linking Mumbai with suburbs through the Mumbai Metropolitan Development Regional Authority (MMDRA) is part of Mumbai Vision for which an estimated expenditure of $50 million is sanctioned.
According to a senior official of the state government, the imposition of the new tax would be in addition to the registration charges and taxes paid to the Regional Transport Office (RTO) while purchasing the vehicle and will depend on the number of vehicles owned by a family. However, the modalities of collecting the tax, its percentage and all other details are still to be worked out, he said
Till 1982 the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) was collecting a vehicle tax, but in 1983 this was stopped. According to rough estimates the BMC would be able to mop up revenue of Rs.500 crores per year through the proposed vehicle tax. But Deshmukh said that the money was not the main criteria for exploring the proposal. “We need to discourage the number of personal vehicles in the city which are growing at an alarming rate.”
“The new vehicle tax would be collected through the RTO as it was done earlier. The second option is to increase the existing road tax in the property tax bills. The option of imposing tax per vehicle owned by the family is also open. Old vehicles will be taxed less, while new vehicles owners will have to pay more. This would discourage people from plying their vehicles on road,” said a senior BMC official.
The proposal to impose vehicle tax has found critics. “Fix public transport, and then seek vehicle tax,” say traffic experts. There are nearly more than a million vehicles in Mumbai.
“There is a lobby of politicians and businessmen in Mumbai which for decades has ensured that there is no good public transport and people buy two and four-wheelers. These vested interests have benefited from the bad public transport since the lobby benefits,” said Vikram Bhalerao, working in traffic and transport sector.
“No one is opposed to reducing the use of personal vehicles. But Mumbai’s traffic problem cannot be compared with foreign cities. What could be suitable in Dubai, would not work here,” Bhalerao added.
Other traffic experts say the state government is working at cross purposes. “Use of personal vehicles should be reduced. But on the one hand the chief minister is thinking of a new vehicle tax, while on the other hand the BMC is planning more flyovers and ring road that will spur people to use private vehicles. There should be integrated planning for the city, which is not done by the civic body,” said Goraksh Prabhu, a retired senior city planner.
