Bengaluru: It took one year, eleven months for 72-year-old M Ramachandran to get a ‘genuineness’ certificate from the city RTO to get a refund of road tax from Kochi even after paying the road tax in Bengaluru.
RTO has of late been coming down heavily on those having vehicles registered outside the state. But despite paying the tax in the city, many have been struggling to get the refund from the state they had previously registered, only because of delay by the Bengaluru RTO in sending the ‘genuineness’ certificate.
Ramachandran said, “I brought my 1961 model Fiat with reg: no: WBA-471 by train. Since then I have purchased several cars: Maruti 800, Maruti Esteem, Hyundai Accent, Hyundai I-10 Automatic – from Bengaluru dealers and paid the road tax.
On 2014, on a visit to Kochi I found a nice used Honda Brio, 2011 model and I purchased it as I liked the car’s compact size and performance. The car arrived in Bengaluru on January 18, 2014 with a Kerala registration number (KL-07-BS-6050). The lifetime Road Tax of Rs 49,847 and a cess of Rs 498 was paid on December 24, 2011 at R.T.O. Kochi, which was valid up to September 30, 2026. I approached Jayanagar RTO on January 5, 2014 for re-registration of my car in Karnataka.
They calculated and told me to pay Rs 56,383 as road tax after depreciation of the car since December 24, 2011 (over three years). I paid the amount within 12 days of the arrival of my car and got the Karnataka Registration number KA-05-MP-2854.”
“At that time, the time allowed by the Karnataka Government was 11 months from the date of arrival. Then I applied to RTO Kochi to refund the balance Road Tax and made an application, endorsing a copy to the previous owner and R.T.O. Jayanagar. R.T.O Kochi wrote to R.T.O Jayanagar vide letter no: C13/2318/2014/E dated 30-04-2014, requesting them to report the genuineness of Change of Registration and payment of road tax. But nothing happened.”
Finally, after sending repeated emails to the Transport Commissioner and the Transport Minister explaining the details with scanned proof and making numerous visits to Jayanagar RTO, recently a RTO official came and handed over the certificate.
He showed another sealed certificate which they said will be sent to Kochi RTO. This is just one instance; there are many others like Ramachandran who are still struggling to get their refund from other states.
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