KARACHI, Jan 12: A total of 474,930 vehicles were registered from June 1, 2009 to October 30, 2010 in Sindh, 274,383 in Karachi alone.

This was stated by Sindh Minister for Excise & Taxation Mukesh Kumar Chawla in his written reply to a question asked by member of the provincial assembly Heer Ismail Sohu during the question hour on Wednesday.

Ms Sohu had sought details of the number and classification of the vehicles registered in the province during the period.

The details provided by the minister showed that Karachi topped the list with 274,383 vehicles registered during the period. Of them, 62,132 were private and 28,722 commercial vehicles. The figure included 183,529 two-wheelers.

Karachi was followed by Hyderabad where a total of 84,311 vehicles — 11,458 private, 2,130 commercial and 70, 7,723 motorcycles —were registered.

In Larkana, a total of 12,853 vehicles were registered and 604 of them were private, 39 commercial and 12,210 motorcycles.

A total of 83,565 vehicles were registered in Sukkur and they comprised 2,292 private and 105 commercial vehicles besides 81,168 motorcycles.

The number of vehicles registered in Mirpurkhas was 19,818 of which 1,117 were private vehicles and 1,870 motorcycles.

The minister also briefed members about the schedule of category-wise registration fee.

Ms Sohu also wanted to know the target fixed for the collection of tax during 2009-10 and the amount of tax collected up to Oct 2010.

In his written reply, the minister stated that Rs5.851billion had been collected till October 2010 under the heads of various taxes while Rs20.138 billion had been fixed as the target for the current fiscal.

He said the target for the year 2009-10 was Rs15.837 billion against which a collection of Rs17.139 billion was made.

Responding to a question by MPA Arif Mustafa Jatoi, Mr Chawla said that the government had not imposed any new taxes on the tractors provided to farmers by the agriculture department at subsidised rates. He also welcomed the member’s suggestion to waive off the registration fee for the recipients of such tractors who were affected by the recent floods in Sindh. The minister assured the member that the suggestion would be sent to the authorities concerned for due consideration.

In response to another question asked by Mr Jatoi, the minister provided a list of district-wise monthly collection of the provincial excise duty during the period from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. The statement showed a total collection of Rs2,538.748 million collection from various districts (Karachi Rs1,569.766 million, Hyderabad Rs325.045 million, Sukkur Rs229.488 million, Larkana Rs154.856 million and Mirpurkhas Rs259.593million).

Ms Sohu also wanted to know how many officials from other department were working in the excise department.

The minister replied that there were six such officers and assured the house that they would be soon be transferred to their parent departments.

Nusrat Sehar Abbasi asked the minister for the district-wise figures of persons who died after drinking raw alcohol during the period from January 2008 to August 2010.

The minister said the matter was sent to the department concerned but there had been no response so far although two reminders were also sent later. He assured the house that the requested information would be submitted to the house as soon as it was received by his department.

In his reply to Ms Abbasi’s other question about reports of an increasing sale and consumption of drugs in the Khairpur district, Mr Chawla said the matter was sent to the authorities concerned and the factual position would be brought to the knowledge of the house as and when the report was furnished to his department.

The MPA also sought details about the E&T officials working out of the district on detailment and deputation during the period from April 2008 to August 2010.

The minister stated that only 13 E&T officials were sent to other districts on deputation, adding that such transfers and postings were a routine affair in government departments.