Vehicle registration system hits snags
PHOTO: FILE
Thousands of car and motorbike owners have faced delays in registration of their vehicles because of hiccups in the implementation of a new motor vehicle registration system by the excise and taxation department.
According to sources, the new system has not begun functioning smoothly although it had been rolled out almost a month ago.
The owners of vehicles have faced delays in hundreds of cases of registration and ownership transfer.
Thousands of vehicle sale deals are held up because of uncertainty about the excise system.
The sources said the major reason for the problems was lack of coordination and mistrust between the technical team and the field staff of the excise department.
It is also feared that elements in the staff at the excise branches concerned might be disinterested in implementing the system because it has discontinued cash transactions in government offices.
The sources said the provincial secretary and director general of excise had expressed concern over the delay in making the new system fully operational.
Excise Secretary Masood Mukhtar had voiced his displeasure with the technical team’s performance during a meeting and asked why the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) had not adequately trained it, the sources said.
The secretary issued instructions to fix the technical problems in the new system. In order to update the motor vehicle registration system that had been in operation for 18 years, the excise department had ceased all activities under it on September 7.
The department had announced that the new system would become fully functional in seven days, but the move has not materialised in the past 28 days.
Bugs identified in the computerised system are not fixed immediately due to lack of communication and coordination.
The technical team of the excise department and the PITB have not yet been able to completely address the glitches in the system, the sources said.
They said the elimination of the technical flaws was taking longer owing to inadequate communication between the technical team and the field administration.
The technical team has not yet decided which components of the new system should be activated at a later stage.
There is prohibition of accepting cash payments from applicants of government duties at the excise offices under the new system.
Thousands of new registrations and ownership transfers of vehicles are held up across Punjab in addition to sales because of delay in online verification, biometrics and related documents.
A field official of the excise department said the technical team was responsible for the delays in addressing problems in the new system.
An official of the technical wing, Muhammad Saleem, said certain issues had arisen regarding the the new system, but they were being resolved.
He said about 70 per cent of the new system had been functioning correctly.
He said work on 20 of the 30 alterations needed in the system had been completed, while the deadline of October 10 had been given for the remaining tasks.
The official asserted that the system would be streamlined in a couple of weeks.
Saleem said 4,000 new registrations, 2,100 transfers and 2,000 token tax cases had been completed through the new system on Wednesday , so it was a misperception that the system was not functioning.
Punjab Excise and Taxation DG Muhammad Ali said the department and the PITB were working together to fix the loopholes in the system.
He said 95% of the system has been operating without any problem for the past couple of days.
The official said the citizens would easily pay taxes through the new system and the role of agents in offices would be eliminated.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 6th, 2023.