June 10, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 05, 1429

KARACHI, June 9: Registration of cars at the motor vehicle registration department declined by 15 per cent during the first 10 months (July-April) of 2007-08 compared to the same period last year.

Giving reasons for the decline of registration of private cars, which is the main source of income from the motor vehicle tax, Shoaib Siddiqui, Motor Vehicle Registration Director, told Dawn on Monday that as a result of tight policy on car leasing by banks, car registration has gone down.

The department has extended tax payment timings at the Civic Centre counters from 2pm to 3:30pm to facilitate taxpayers to pay their tax before June 30.

A 44 per cent increase in the registration of commercial vehicles and 20 per cent increase in registration of motorcycles has been observed.

Following an abnormal increase in oil prices, transport charges have gone up considerably creating charm for transporters to earn more money through employing more vehicles.

The MVR department has decided to launch a road checking campaign from next week to nab the vehicle tax defaulters.

A similar campaign was undertaken in May during which the checking squads impounded 108 vehicles on serious tax defaults. It collected over Rs3.7 million from defaulters.

However, the campaign did not achieve the desired results as police refused to impound vehicles for shortage of parking space in police stations.

The department has now made alternative arrangement for parking of such vehicles.

The MVY registered 1,68,520 vehicles during July-April this year compared to 1,54,710 vehicles registered during the same period last year, marking a nine per cent increase.

The number of non-commercial vehicles registered this year was 49,456, commercial vehicles 9,426 and motorcycles 1,09,638.