Karimnagar: Special drive helps Transport department rake in record revenue

Karimnagar Regional Transport Office managed to get a whopping Rs 303.39 crore revenue in the financial year 2022-23

Karimnagar: A special drive carried out by the Road and Transport department to collect pending tax seems to have yielded good results as the Department has registered a record revenue in the financial year 2022-23.

The State government had given additional time to vehicle owners to pay road tax during the Covid pandemic. Taking advantage of this, a majority of vehicle owners stopped paying taxes. To collect tax payments that pending during the last two to three years, Transport department authorities carried out a fortnight special drive in the last week of February and March. This helped the department rake in the highest revenue it recorded so far.

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The Karimnagar Regional Transport Office managed to get a whopping Rs 303.39 crore revenue in the financial year 2022-23. This was Rs 106 crore more than that of last year’s revenue.

Karimnagar, Peddapalli, Jagtial and Rajanna-Sircilla districts’ transport offices fall under Karimnagar Regional Transport Office. Unit offices in Huzurabad, Ramagundam and Korutla are also providing services.

Out of the Rs 303.39 crore, the Transport department got Rs 184.48 crore through lifetime tax, Rs 58.78 crore as quarterly tax, Rs 40.48 crore (fines), Rs 9.40 crore (service charges), and Rs 10.25 crore through vehicle checking.

Karimnagar got the highest collection of Rs 149.40 crore followed by Peddapalli (Rs 69.97 crore), Jagtial (Rs 50.96 crore) and Rajanna-Sircilla (Rs 33.6 crore). There is a 54 percent jump in the revenue when compared to previous year’s income of Rs 196.7 crore.

The special drive to collect tax dues helped the department to get the highest revenue this year, official sources said, also admitting that besides the Covid pandemic, lack of enforcement by the department had also resulted in piling up of pending taxes. Moreover, there was no proper vehicle checking during the last few years due to lack of staff. There was a staff shortage as a majority of inspectors were on deputation to check-posts.

Following this, higher officials had cancelled all deputations and brought the inspectors back to their original postings to carry out the special drives across the State, the sources said.