The empowered group of state transport ministers, headed by Rajasthan transport minister Brij Kishore Sharma, on Friday approved a formula for sharing among states the fees of national permit issued to truck operators. The proposal will now go to Transport Development Council for discussion on April 16.
The road transport and highways ministry is pushing for quickly working out the modalities of national permit, so that truck operators can apply for such a licence from May 1. In the new national permit regime, a trucker can operate seamlessly throughout the country against the payment of Rs 15,000 per truck a year, which will be collected centrally and distributed among states as per the agreed formula.
Under the approved model, union territories will be the biggest losers as they would not get anything from the permit fees that will be collected by State Road Transport Undertaking?a non-government organisation acting as a collection agent. The fees is to be deposited in public sector lender State Bank of India in the beginning, but later Union Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, private players HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank will be brought into the fold.
?If the Transport Development Council approves the model, the new system will come into force on the promised date. Initially, we will test the model for six months as some problems may crop up during implementation. The system will be fine-tuned during the course of time,? a senior ministry official, who has knowledge of developments, told FE.
?The formula is based on the fees that individual states have collected in the preceding three years when the previous permit regime was in place,? the official added. A state that had collected less than Rs 1 crore during the last financial year will receive Rs 1 crore from the fees collected by State Road Transport Undertaking in the new regime. For other individual states, the average of fees collected in last three years will be divided by the country?s average to reach at the percentage share of each state in the collective fees.
The earlier system of permit allowed trucks to operate in three contiguous states besides the home state at a fee of Rs 5,000 per annum. The ministry is planning the scheme from more than one year now. In a meeting last month, road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath had promised All India Motor Transport Congress?which had threatened to go on a national-wide strike from April 5?that the new national permit scheme will be implemented from May 1.