The Hindu Business Line : `Consider tax sops for car consumers'

The automotive industry has said that it was making a representation to the Government to consider tax sops for car consumers to make it easier for them to purchase cars.

The auto industry requested the Government to increase the depreciation allowances in income-tax from 15 to 25 per cent along with added incentives for replacement of commercial vehicles that were 15 years old. The industry also demanded infrastructure status and tax benefits for import of parking system and technology to be included in income tax.

Requests for uniformity and rationalisation of value-added tax on used cars and abolishment of octroi and entry tax were also made at the Auto Retail Framework for Growth Summit organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here.

More proposals

Amongst the other points brought forth by the industry were accreditation of dealers as inspection agencies of in-use cars, formulating vehicle scrapping policies and standardisation of driver training schools.

Meanwhile at the summit, the Minister for Road Transport, Shipping and Highways, Mr T.R. Baalu, called for faster computerisation of Road Transport Offices (RTOs) in the States and asked them to speed up the work.

"State Governments are required to take steps not only to computerise the RTOs but also to put all records on computer. This would facilitate uniformity of the records throughout the country and ultimately help transfer vehicles in an expeditious manner," he said.

Expressing concern on the advertisements of certain automobile companies, which depict over-speeding as a virtue, Mr Baalu said, "We know that one of the main reasons of road accidents is over-speeding." He pointed out that over 92,000 people were killed in more than four lakh reported accidents in 2004 that involved huge social cost estimated at two to three per cent of the GDP. He also called upon the automobile companies to modernise their vehicles by installing global positioning system (GPS) technology.

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