Excise dept’s faulty e-pay system adds to citizens’ woes

Technical staff fails to fix software glitch as citizens face hardships in paying online taxes

RAWALPINDI:

Citizens have been facing problems in making online payments from home due to continuous bugs in the software and malfunctioning internet in the Department of Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Rawalpindi.

The e-payment system has not been functioning for the last five days due to which citizens have to face problems in depositing online property, token tax, luxury tax, motor transfer fee and biometric fee.

Due to the failure of the system, the department has been facing a loss of millions of rupees daily.

Sources in the excise department told The Express Tribune that the e-pay system has been malfunctioning for the last one week. The system is partially restored for only 15 to 20 minutes a day before it stops working, the sources said.

The reason for the technical failure of the Internet was not yet known. Efforts were being made to fix the e-pay system, but no success has been achieved so far, the sources said.

Around 10 per cent discount is given to the citizens for depositing online taxes. Due to the malfunctioning of the online system, users have stopped paying taxes.

On the other hand, the department has proposed to the high-ups to suspend the biometric system for another two months and to carry out new registration and transfer of vehicles and motorcycles using the manual method.

Officials said that more revenue is generated through the manual method.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department has decided to restore the biometric system for the registration of vehicles and motorcycles and the transfer of old vehicles from January 23 in all 36 districts including the Rawalpindi division.

In this regard, the director-general of the excise and taxation department has issued a formal circular to all officers concerned.

In September 2022, the excise and taxation department suspended the biometric verification following the protests and demands of transporters and motor dealers as people were facing problems in getting old vehicles transferred because the complete record of registration of old cars and motorcycles had not been computerised. Due to the non-availability of the computerised record, old vehicles and motorcycles were returned without verification.

With the introduction of the biometric system for the registration and transfer of vehicles and motorcycles and the suspension of the manual transfer of ownership of old vehicles in April, the excise and taxation department lost millions of rupees daily and it was suspended temporarily.

The biometric system was suspended for over three months from September 10, 2022, which was aimed at making up for losses of millions of rupees daily. After the suspension of the biometric system, the excise department had expected to fetch a revenue of up to Rs15 billion in three months because a large number of owners of old vehicles and motorcycles were waiting for registration.

Sources said that the existing manual system of registration and transfer of vehicles and motorcycles will be done away with from January 23.

The excise and taxation department circular stated that the biometric system is a security system for vehicle ownership and it aims to prevent forgery and sale of stolen vehicles.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2023.