GUJRAT, July 15: A number of heavy traffic vehicles, including buses and trucks, plying on inter-provincial routes on N-5 (GT Road) are evading token tax due to the hindrance being created by the National Highway & Motorway Police in the functioning of motor checking squad of the Excise and Taxation Department.
A survey on Sunday revealed that owners of illegally fabricated multi-excel trucks and trailers were evading most of the token tax.
Sources in the Excise department said that owners of loaders enhanced the length of their vehicles by wielding an extra excel and fitting extra tyres. They claimed that these illegally fabricated multi-excel trucks/trailers were not paying token tax of extra tyres.
The motor checking squad of the Gujrat Excise and Taxation department is duty bound to intercept such vehicles in the limits of the district for the token tax. But the NH&MP is not allowing the excise motor checking team to check these vehicles on the GT Road on the pretext of avoiding fatal accidents.
Sources said that about 75 per cent buses plying on inter-provincial routes were defaulters of the provincial excise department and the default amount was increasing day by day due to the indifferent attitude of the NH&MW.
Provincial authorities of the Excise department have sent a list of several hundred buses to Gujranwala, Gujrat, Jhelum and Rawalpindi offices with a direction to make arrangements for the recovery of token tax from owners who are still evading the tax. But, sources claimed that officials of these districts were helpless in checking the tax evasion due to the restrictions imposed by the NH&MW.
This correspondent witnessed that a motor checking squad was checking the truckers in Kharian when some NH&MW officials came there and advised the excise team not to park vehicles in queues along the GT Road as it could result in a fatal accident. They also asked the excise team not to check the vehicles in future because the GT Road was now their responsibility.
Excise Inspector Amir Shahzad Gondal, heading the motor checking squad, admitted that buses, trailers and trucks were evading the tax. He further said the checking squad had been feeling inconvenience by the day the NH&MW had taken over the N-5 and started interfering in checking.
“Although we are facing scores of problems in checking the evaders, the recovery target against defaulters of token tax had been achieved”, he said. The recovery against the proportionate target of Rs32.5 million was Rs35.3 million during the fiscal year 2002-3 showing a percentage of 109, he said.
About illegally fabricated multi-excel truckers and trailers, he said that his team had sent about 69 such cases to provincial authorities for further proceedings.
He said that his team had caught two smuggled Hiaces (SAD-1173 & CJ-3176) and as many cars (Karachi ABQ-277 & Charsadda B-1459) during the month of June. He said that cases against the owners of these smuggled vehicles had been registered by Kharian Cantonment, Kakrali, Civil Lines and Kharian Saddar police stations, respectively.