[pathik]

Residents, who will purchase a car worth Rs 10 lakh and above, will have to shell out half the price of the car as road tax, which at present is 6% the cost of the vehicle. In the draft policy, the administration has proposed to charge road tax up to half the price of the second car purchased by any household.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/61774287.cms

[Stigissimo]

All this will do is get more people to register their cars illegally in another state

[mayankk]

What an idea, sirji.
And you know, I am always frustrated by these 10L and up car owners on the road. They have nothing better to do than take out their big expensive cars and park on the highway, blocking the roads, taking up all the parkings, just to cause problems for small people like me in our sub 10 L cars. Why dont they get jobs, go to office and work like me. Useless fellows. They are a blotch on humanity, with their expensive cars. Dont they know us poor guys in altos and celeries and sub 4m cars have to go to work and feed our families? We are the cogs and the grease that run the country.
Go small or go home!!

PS:That is a milking scheme if ever there was one.
PPS: Let there be no sarchasm.

[th2]

On a serious note, Indian cities do need to disincentivize car ownership. What is the right way to do it, I don't know. Models like Singapore's limited permit system, London's congestion charges are all worth looking into.

I am fascinated by Amsterdam. A few decades back the city took a conscious decision to reduce private car ownership and it has worked out quite well for them.

[himanshugoswami]

This scheme needs to be augmented by crackdown on out of state cars. But, there's a problem- Chandigarh is the capital of Punjab and Haryana, apart from being a UT. Hence, legally cars registered in Punjab and Haryana have the right to ply on chandigarh roads. So unless these two states also hike their road tax similarly, this scheme is bound to fail.

[ralto]

Originally Posted by himanshugoswami

This scheme needs to be augmented by crackdown on out of state cars. But, there's a problem- Chandigarh is the capital of Punjab and Haryana, apart from being a UT. Hence, legally cars registered in Punjab and Haryana have the right to ply on chandigarh roads. So unless these two states also hike their road tax similarly, this scheme is bound to fail.

Excellent point by Himanshu.

I think there has been a radical increase in the traffic in Chandigarh in last couple of years. IMHO peak hours see much higher traffic now, than ever before.

However, I don't think this is specific to Chandigarh but a growing problem altogether. I hope/wish Chandigarh can carve out a decent policy and implement it equally well and then maybe other states can follow, to tackle the ever increasing problem of traffic as well as pollution.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by himanshugoswami

This scheme needs to be augmented by crackdown on out of state cars. But, there's a problem- Chandigarh is the capital of Punjab and Haryana, apart from being a UT. Hence, legally cars registered in Punjab and Haryana have the right to ply on chandigarh roads. So unless these two states also hike their road tax similarly, this scheme is bound to fail.

Or simply charge a "congestion" fee for HR/PB cars entering the UT. Might trigger some litigation, but with the current vibes around pollution these days, you can't be sure if the courts will be willing to strike it down.

Cars and common man being the favourite soft targets for bearing the brunt of pollution control.

[varoon9999]

Jacking up the road tax merely in Chandigarh will not work,as said above most of the cars ply on Chandigarh roads are from other states,this measure needs a nationwide push,wherein all other states/UT's can follow the similar suit.Else the repercussion in longer run will be abysmal on curbing down the carbon levels.

[MileCruncher]

A few days I had a similar discussion with a friend. Topic being discussed was how do we reduce traffic congestion in a city like Bombay. One solution as per him was hiking the tax rate on cars like Singapore has done.

Before we move to the outcome of the discussion, I would like to discuss something that is peculiar to Bombay. It is one Indian mega city which is actually dependent on Public Transport and unlike other cities, majority of the population here prefers Public Transport over private transport.

IMHO while disincentivising private car ownership is need of the hour, atleast in the big cities, it cannot be done thru a policy that is same for rural and urban cities. Instead Govt can look at creating core City Centre zone with high congestion charges and battery operated cabs / buggies to cater to mass movement.

[pgsagar]

Funny , not a single comment says, "daylight robbery". 6% to 50%? This is dacoity. Why not a million per cent? Say 100 crores tax for Alto. Luxury cars? one zillion rupees. How about that? Why not kill the goose that lays golden eggs? All the govts do is milk citizenry to its death, in the name of taxes.

[nkghai]

Originally Posted by varoon99UT99

Jacking up the road tax merely in Chandigarh will not work,as said above most of the cars ply on Chandigarh roads are from other states,this measure needs a nationwide push,wherein all other states/UT's can follow the similar suit.Else the repercussion in longer run will be abysmal on curbing down the carbon levels.

These are all adhoc and knee jerk measures.

Chandigarh UT is actually a tricity. Unless Pachkula and Mohali also have same rule it will be hopelssly ineffective thing and we will have ALL taxi and cab operators shifting offices and registering there. You cant ban Taxis registered in Panchkula and Mohali to ply in the tricity

Only left to bear the brunt will be poor permanent citizens who buy one vehicle in 5 years. Sometimes amazed by our thinking process

[Nav-i-gator]

I am ok with this, if the govt also agrees to pay half the cost of construction of the road for every pothole existing on the road inside Chandigarh city, for every traffic signal failure that creates traffic jam, for every non-working street light and for every traffic congestion caused by VIP movement, among other things.

[Nissan1180]

From what I've seen in Chandigarh, it is not easy to commute if you depend on public transport. Also, the quality of roads etc. are not what you'd call world class. Ahmedabad has far better roads than Chandigarh.

The only justification to do this would be to help decongest roads. But any MBA student with a basic notion of economics would show that such disincentives don't work unless a decent alternative is provided. The Government might end up richer, the middle class (which sustains this country) poorer, and no one would be better off. The dead-weight loss would be far too much to justify this step. People would simply buy old cars and run them till they're not roadworthy anymore.

[SajiNSalin]

Chandigarh needs to come out with such a fantastic public transport system that nobody would want to buy a car at all. There are two ways to solve a problem like this; one to provide an excellent alternate system, so that the problem goes away, two: to punish everybody and drive them underground and increase the corruption. We all know which is the better way to solve the problem, but do those who matter?

The odd-even number plate car on a particular day was tried out in Lagos, Nigeria. Guess what happened? Every body went for two cars, and the number of cars doubled and the problem did not go away. Delhi also tried it for a few days, but do they now?

[mudhasir]

This is lame. We talk about tax systems in Singapore and London to discourage traffic but we conveniently ignore to compare the transport infrastructure that exists their vis-a-vis India. Singapore is able to charge such heavy tax because the need of a car in Singapore can genuinely be classified as luxury. Their exist a robust metro and bus transport that connects every nook and corner of Singapore and you could see companies CEOs and top salaried professionals taking metro to office. Do you see that happening in India?

Imagine what will happen to Mumbai locals if similar tax is levied in Mumbai - people cannot afford cars and taking public transport is no less than a war. And why Mumbai, even big cities like Bangalore and Chennai do not have a transport system that's even comparable to Singapore.

In my opinion, make good use of the tax collected already before increasing the tax figures. Going by our monthly sales report, atleast 2,70,000 cars are sold every month and RTO only on cars is going to be 1,500 crore per month(a very conservative estimate)

With a better planning and investment, Indian transport can be made stronger and then charge additional RTO to curb traffic/pollution.