Audit red flags plying unregistered vehicles, highlights revenue loss

PATNA: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has indicted the practice of delivery of new vehicles from dealers without mandatory registration in Bihar in its audit report for the year ending March 31, 2019, tabled recently in the state legislature.

“... It not only compromised the objective of dealer-point registration to ensure delivery of vehicles with registration mark and immediate realisation of road tax, but also posed a risk as such vehicles can be easily misused for unlawful activities... Central motor vehicle rules, 1989, state that vehicles cannot be delivered without registration, whether temporary or permanent,” says the report.

The report says that dealerpoint registration system was functional in all the 38 district transport offices of Bihar, but there was delay in payment of taxes by 488 authorised dealers for 4,23,897 vehicles for a period ranging from one day to 1997 days. “In Sheohar district, an authorised dealer was found to have delivered 24 vehicles in December 2018 and uploaded required documents for registration in March 2019 without payment of due tax and allotment of temporary registration, which would have also brought an additional revenue of Rs 3.16 crore to the state government,” the report says.

In its reply, the transport department said, “Temporary registration was not a matter of right. Instead, it was a choice of the vehicle purchaser and hence the department did not levy temporary registration fee”.

“After implementation of VAHAN-4 (between May 2017 and February 2018), vehicles were delivered only after realisation of due tax and fee and allotment of permanent registration mark. In case of DTO Shehohar, necessary instruction has been issued to remit amount realised from the dealer,” the department said.

However, the audit did not find the reply of the department tenable.

The audit report has also pointed out that “due to absence of guidelines/supporting documents for registration of tractor and tractor trailers, seven DTOs registered 8,969 tractors or tractor-trailer combination under agriculture category in arbitrary manner, leading to loss of revenue of Rs 25.22 crore”.