An increasing number of people are buying new cars despite tax revision on vehicles. Between July and December, last year, Road Safety and Transport Authority registered over 2,572 new vehicles.
Last year in December alone, RSTA officials registered almost a 1,000 vehicles.
The figures do not include those vehicles in the showrooms that are waiting to be sold and registered.
“Since the ban was lifted, we have been registering, on an average, 10 vehicles a day. During other occasions, we even registered 40 vehicles a day,” said a Motor Vehicle’s Senior Inspector, Dhan Bahadur.
The import of vehicle ban was lifted in July, 2014. Soon after the ban was lifted, 45 percent sales tax and 10 percent green tax were levied on the import of vehicle.
The upsurge in the sale of vehicles is almost 30 to 40 percent with Samden Vehicles. Its Operations Manager, Kezang said, earlier, they could sell only one to two vehicles a month. “After the ban was lifted; we are able to sell at least 12 to 15.”
Samden vehicles, which initially laid-off some of their staff, due to slump in business is hiring again.
RSTA’s Director General, Lham Dorji said there is not much of an increase in the number of vehicles registered prior to the ban and after the ban was lifted. RSTA had registered 9,000 vehicles in 2011 and 2,822 in 2014.
Since 2011, the total number of vehicles in the country increased from 62,697 to 69,602 as of now.
The increase in the number of vehicles in the country is raising concerns regarding traffic congestions.
Lham Dorji said efforts should be made to make public transportation facility more reliable and efficient.
“We are trying to increase the number of city busses and increase the rate of frequency, we are trying to, at least, reduce the number of waiting hours to 10 minutes …”
Today, there are 39 city busses in the capital. RSTA is hoping to increase it to at least 50.
A study carried out by the World Bank says should the present rate of increase in the number of vehicles continue it could as well take one hour to reach Babesa from the city centre.
