Dehradun: On the lines of Himachal Pradesh, the transport department of Uttrakhand is mulling a green cess from every vehicle from other states to augment the government coffers. Effective next year, the system will automatically deduct a certain amount from the tourist's wallet.
About 17 cameras installed on the state border will soon be connected to the Intelligent Tolling System (ITS) software technology that can read the number plates of the vehicles. Preparations are on the anvil to implement the new system to impose green cess on vehicles from other states, allowing the state to earn a good income.
Joint transport commissioner Sanat Kumar Singh said presently, green cess is being collected from heavy commercial vehicles and small vehicles are exempted from it. Rates for green cess will range from ₹40 to ₹80. Currently, the entire collection is done manually by issuing invoices and plans are afoot to bring it under the FastTag wallet.
Although ₹40 is fixed for private cars and the cess is valid for 24 hours, no collection is being done from private vehicles due to lack of management. Uttrakhand is earning ₹5 to ₹6 crores annually from green cess. The new system is expected to augment the collection to ₹75 crore annually by taxing private vehicles.
While the government is currently considering increasing the amount of green cess, the reason behind this is that Himachal Pradesh is collecting three times the present rate. Doubling the cess amount will augment the collection to ₹120-₹150 crore per annum.
The transport department will be hiring a private company for the toll collection and the tender for the same has been floated. After the selection of the agency by the first week of December, future formalities will be completed.
A data centre, for a glitch-free operation of the system, will be set up by the department. It will function as a repository for the data of all vehicles entering Uttrakhand and the entire cess collection system can be monitored through this.
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