The desire to retain archaic and torturous processes is simply inexplicable
KARACHI: I bought and registered a car in October 2017. To this day, I drive with a temporary, stencilled, tin number plate, as the Sindh Excise and Taxation Department has no mechanism for issuance of regular number plates for the newly-registered cars. There are thousands of other car owners who have been facing the same problem for the past several years. In Karachi alone, this has led to more than 200,000 vehicles going around with fake, personalised, AFR, foreign or stolen number plates.
What stops the Sindh Excise and Taxation Department from performing such a simple and elementary task? Getting sufficient number plates made in advance and issuing them on ‘day 1’ of the car registration is a normal practice in most countries of the world. Regular number plates should be issued within 24 hours of the new car registration which must also be linked to biometric verification and the correct home address of the buyer. This can be ensured by delivering the number plate only at the home address mentioned in the registration documents.
Lastly, the Sindh Excise and Taxation Department must be questioned for not adopting the electronic or mobile money transfer system for yearly payment of motor vehicle tax. The desire to retain archaic and torturous processes is simply inexplicable. Can we once again, for a hundredth time now, request the Sindh chief minister to push the E&T department to get its act together.
Naeem Sadiq
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2019.
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