Worrisome Trends
New car sales are slowing down on account of a slow-down in the country’s economy. The impact of the increased tariffs on Indian goods being imported into the United States of America is adding to the existing problems. By increasing the tariffs, they are not doing a favour to the people, barring only a handful. We have gone through this in the past when we had very few car manufacturers and they were selling 20-year-old car models.
The toll charged for travelling from Pune to Lonavala is Rs 240 (for less than 40 kilometres of Pune-Mumbai Expressway use) and Rs 320 is charged up to Panvel for a total distance of 97 km. This on top of paying one of the highest road taxes in the world. One does not know what the authorities will charge once the missing link tunnel becomes operational.
Last week I happened to travel from Jaipur to Delhi on the new Mumbai-Delhi Expressway. It was disturbing to see that the road is already under repairs and the Expressway has not even been completed as yet. Even more alarming was the fact that there were some dips in the road where the car became airborne.
In most countries of the world road tax is charged on the basis of the weight of the vehicle and not its price. In fact, in India we also had the same rule prior to the introduction of the lifetime tax and one could put one’s car into “non-use” if one was not going to drive it for a period of six months or a year. Why can we not have a common registration fee across the country and have road tax charged on fuel, so that one can use one’s car anywhere in the country without having to re-register it and then pay the road tax of that state when one moves from one state to another?
EDITOR – ASPI BHATHENA
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