E-Paper
Out of ₹295-crore grant, PRTC pays ₹291 crore road tax
The grant-in-aid of ₹295.13 crore by the state government to the Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) went into repayment to state coffers in form of pending road tax worth ₹291 crore
The grant-in-aid of ₹295.13 crore by the state government to the Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) went into repayment to state coffers in the form of pending road tax worth ₹291 crore.
The government sanctioned and released the grant on February 11 on the precondition that the corporation should first clear its road tax which has not been paid for over a decade.
With the payment of tax, the PRTC, which was one of the biggest road tax defaulters with the state transport department, has now zero outstanding towards the state government.
More than 90% of its total fleet of 1,113 buses are plying on roads without paying any road tax. Due to the non-payment of road tax, the government had stalled a grant-in-aid of ₹291 crore allocated to the PRTC by the state government nine months ago.
PRTC managing director Parneet Shergill said the corporation is not any more road tax defaulter as all pending debt towards the government has been cleared.
“The grant-in-aid was given on conditions that the liabilities towards the transport department in the form of road tax were to be cleared on top priority,” Shergill said.
She added now the corporation will focus on strengthening its exchequer by generating more income from its revenue sources.
Nirmal Singh Dhaliwal, convener of PRTC-linked trade unions, said as per the new transport policy, it is stated that permits for only those buses will be renewed who have paid their pending road tax with the department.
“Therefore, in such conditions, there is no other way for the corporation to utilise the grant-in-aid in some other manner. But what is the point of providing such a huge sum of funds when it is were to be paid back in less than a month,” Dhaliwal said.
He added that if the government could waive dues of the power corporation and other departments, it should have also followed the same procedure for road tax.
