Excise dept to expedite smart card registrations

The Punjab excise and taxation department has finally succeeded in overcoming the ongoing crisis of smart card registrations after a modern manufacturing plant and raw material to produce 1.4 million cards has reached Lahore from the United States. In the next 45 days, 700,000 cards will be manufactured and delivered to car owners, sources said.

In addition, the excise department has also decided to reduce the security fee for non-company dealers providing services under the Dealers Vehicle Registration System (DVRS) by 100 per cent.

A meeting of top officials from the excise department and the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) was held last week to discuss the preparation of modern software for other departmental matters, including online auction. It was decided that the PITB will provide a test version of the software to the excise department after Eidul Azha holidays.

Earlier, due to the delay in the arrival of the required raw material from the US, 700,000 motor vehicle owners had been deprived of smart cards despite paying more than Rs370 million to the excise department. The Covid-19 pandemic and associated travel restrictions caused further postponements. As the lockdown was eased, the raw material and the manufacturing plant finally reached Lahore at the office of the director-general of the excise department.

The technical shortcomings of the machine installed in the production facility also became a major hurdle. After the international lockdown was eased, the company imported raw materials for the manufacture of 1.4 million cards and also imported a new plant for card manufacturing from the United States and installed it in the DG Excise Building.

Provincial Excise Minister Hafiz Mumtaz, Excise Secretary Wajihullah Kundi, and Director-General Excise and Taxation, Chaudhry Masoodul Haq inspected the new machines in the manufacturing plant.

In addition, the excise department also decided to reduce the security fee for non-company dealers, or general dealers, under the Dealers Vehicle Registration System by 100 per cent. The security fee for the registration service is Rs1.25 million while for a general dealer it is Rs2.5 million. The security fee for providing registration services of motorcycles and commercial vehicles for an approved dealer is Rs500,000, while for other dealers, it is Rs1million. The security fee for providing registration services for all types of motor vehicles is fixed at Rs1.5 million for approved dealers and Rs3 million for general dealers.

The excise department also decided to issue a new notification under which the security fee for general dealers will be equated to the security fee for approved dealers.

At present, the total number of registered DVRS dealers with the excise department is 104. Of these, 85 dealers are general dealers while 19 dealers are approved dealer distributors of automobile manufacturing companies. The closure of excise department offices during the coronavirus lockdown had boosted the business of DVRS dealers and long-inactive dealers have also renewed their licenses from the excise department.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2020.