Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The number of registered vehicles with Excise and Taxation Office (ETO) Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) had crossed the figure of 0.7 million.

The department had banned the practice of registration of vehicles against affidavits to strictly implement the rule that prohibit it from registering vehicles of those people who were not the resident of federal capital.

Different schemes and packages offered by the private banks had caused significant increase in number of vehicles in the city during past years.

An official of Excise and Taxation Office told ‘Daily Times’ that average 6, 000 vehicles per month were being registered with the department, the office was facing about 200 cases of vehicles registration daily.

According to the Federal Excise and Taxation Office, 50 to 70 motorbikes, 90 to 100 private cars, four to five commercial vehicles and 10 to 15 government vehicles were being added to the city’s traffic each day.

He said more than 40 thousands vehicles have been registered with Excise and Taxation Office during the last seven months of the current year.

The official said the ownership of an average of 250 vehicles was being transferred per day. He informed that total number of registered motorbikes had reached to 150,000 in Islamabad.

Talking about VIP registration numbers, he informed that the department had stopped the auction of VIP numbers and had fixed fee for them that was Rs 5000 to 200,000 according to their demand.

The fee for two digits number was Rs 5000, two same digits number Rs 26000 and Rs 30,000 was fixed for three same digits number.

Likewise, Rs 200,000 fee was fixed for VIP number 001, Rs 150,000 for 005 and 786 and Rs 100,000 was fixed for 007 number.

The official said department had taken various measures to discourage tout mafia and corruption in office. He said public facilitation centre had been established to guide the visitors and token system had also been introduced to end queues on counters.

To control the practice of fraud, the department had introduced online verification of vehicles and one could get detail about any vehicle from department’s website before purchasing it.

To avoid overloading the department had banned registration against affidavits, he said, saying that now only a resident of Islamabad or having working evidence was eligible to register his motor vehicle with Excise Department.