CM to launch new vehicle registration system on 31st

DVRS will help curb crime, stabilise E&T Dept’s revenue.

LAHORE: Dealer Vehicle Registration System (DVRS) would be inaugurated by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on May 31.

Under this system, vehicles will be registered and licence plates will be issued at the sales points – car showrooms and outlets. For the purpose, the chief minister’s Special Monitoring Unit (SMU) has developed a DVRS software in collaboration with the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB).

Eligible dealers will obtain licences from Excise and Taxation Department offices to get access to the software. The customers will get registration plates and related documents from dealers. The dealers would send the documents to the Excise and Taxation Department on the buyer’s behalf. After verification of documents, the Excise and Taxation Department will send the registration book to the buyer.

Under the DVRS, a number plate will be issued in the name of the buyer and not for a vehicle.

Salman Sufi, a senior member of SMU, says that so far 10 dealers have registered with the Excise and Taxation Department. “Once it becomes operational, we will issue warnings to the remaining dealers to register with the Excise and Taxation Department,” he says. He says that since no unregistered vehicles will be allowed on roads after May 31, dealers who are yet to register will have no other options but to apply for a licence at the department.

Sufi says nearly 80 per cent of the vehicles across the province are registered by unregulated agents who extort between Rs1,000 and Rs10,000 from the buyers for registration of their vehicles. This way, he says, at least Rs1.6 billion go into the hands of such agents each year. He says the DVRS will curtail the role of such agents and help stabilise the department’s revenue because it would receive registration fees quickly.

Sufi says the DVRS will also help curb crime because vehicles without number plates are often used for violent crimes.

He says around 27,000 vehicles are stolen, on average, across the Punjab every year. “In some cases, thieves steal applied for/unregistered vehicles, transport these to other districts and register them in their own name.” Tracing such vehicles will be possible under the DVRS, Sufi says. He says the system will spare citizens the hassle of visiting the Excise and Taxation offices. Sufi says that in the next phase, number plates issued to vehicles in the past will be registered in the name of buyers.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2016.