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45,000 vehicles dodge fitness, pay no tax, fines for long

Shahnaz Parveen
***BRTA is losing around Tk 2.89 crore in fitness certificate fees every year while the amount of loss due to non-payment of tax is over Tk 22.65 crore. The amount of fitness certificate fee is Tk 645 while the yearly tax is Tk 5,045 per vehicle, according to fitness department officials***
As many as 44,915 registered vehicles operating in Dhaka and surrounding areas have not appeared for renewing their fitness certificates for a long time, sources from Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) said.
Terming these vehicles 'fitness defaulter' the BRTA officials said apart from causing frequent accidents in the city, these unfit vehicles are depriving the gov-
eminent of a huge amount of revenue every year.
Even there are some vehicles that did not appear for fitness certificate in last 7-8 years.
Humayan Rashid Khalifa, director (operations) of BRTA, said, “The number is too high. We are losing a great amount of fitness fees. Fitness defaulters are also entitled to pay fines if they fail to appear on time. They are not paying the fine as well."
The fitness defaulters do not pay the yearly tax to the govern-
ment either, depriving the state coffer of a gigantic amount of revenue.
BRTA is losing around Tk 2.89 crore in fitness certificate fees every year while the amount of loss due to non-payment of tax is over Tk 22.65 crore. The amount of fitness certificate fee isTk 645 while the yearly tax is Tk 5,045 per vehicle, according to fitness department officials.
Yearly fine for fitness default is Tk 1,800 and for tax nonpayment fine it is Tk 7,500.
A BRTA official said the defaulting owners never pay the tax or the fines to avoid being held for fitness defaulting.
"Some of the vehicles do not appear just because they will not get the fitness certificates because of the dilapidated condition of the vehicle. A large number of buses, taxicabs and almost all the human hauliers fall in this category,” he added.
They continue operating in the city ignoring rules, sometimes even with cases filed
against them by the traffic police.
“There might be some vehicles that were discarded for severe damage caused by accidents while some might be hijacked or some might have went out of Dhaka to operate in another district," the official said.
BRTA cannot ascertain the total number vehicles plying in the city or the number of discarded vehicles as the owners never report to the authority about their status.
"We have sent letters to the owners requesting for their cooperation. If they do not respond after a second notice their registration will be cancelled. Advertisement will be posted in the newspaper regarding the cancellation," Khalifa said.
The list of fitness fee defaulters has also been sent to traffic department of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police for action, he said.
The defaulting vehicles include private car, bus, minibus, cab, human haulier, cargo van, truck, jeep, microbus etc. Of the total, the highest 18, 837 are private car owners.
The list includes 1,725 buses and minibuses that will be phased out of the city as per a recent government decision.
The total number of registered' vehicles in the city is around 4 lakh. The number is 10 lakh in the entire country. There are also thousands of unregistered vehicles.