Top gear: Excise dept looking to revamp vehicle registration system

New number plates, registration books and computerised database on the cards .

PESHAWAR:

The provincial excise and taxation (E&T) department is making drastic changes in its vehicle registration mechanism to get rid of flaws in the present system and put an end to long queues of applicants.

The changes include a new database for vehicle registration, new registration books and number plates, and the introduction of home delivery system through which registration documents and number plates will be sent directly to applicants’ houses via courier service providers, said department insiders.

The plan is in its final stages and the department is making necessary amendments in the laws to give it practical shape. “We are aiming to simplify the registration process to end problems people are facing,” said an official privy to the development.

Requesting anonymity, he said the E&T department is in negotiations with Pakistan Post and private courier services for home delivery of documents and number plates to the owners, who will pay the courier charges.

Furthermore, to eliminate the chances of tampering in registration books and reduce delays in printing, the department is contracting out the task to Pakistan Security Printing Corporation (PSPC).

“The books will have security features like currency notes, including a special monogram, hologram, watermarks and special paper which cannot be produced easily in the market,” he said. The official added that the number of pages in registration books will also be doubled and ownership transfer would be possible 10 times in a single book.

“The PSPC will have blank books in stock; we will send them the relevant data of a vehicle and they will print it in the book and send it back to us within three days.”

Regarding the new database system, the official said they are starting a centralised computerised database system to keep records of vehicles. “The centralised system will be like the one in NADRA. Every district will have access to the records and they will be available at a click,” he said.

According to the official, the database currently being used called the Motor Vehicle Registration System (MVRS) has flaws and technical problems, causing hurdles in accessing information from all the 14 district offices of the department.

“We have sent a tender to the information department for inviting contractors to design new number plates and for the computerisation of the vehicles’ data.”

Moreover, the E&T department is also considering adopting the Sindh style for number plates wherein all plates will state Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on them. At the moment, the department is issuing number plates stating the district where the car is registered. “We are thinking about removing district names from the number plates to curb the practice of people buying vehicles from one district and getting them registered elsewhere,” he said.

The department officials have recently visited Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad to observe registration systems, books and number plates being used in other provinces.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2015.