Me and few of my friends, while returning from our joy drive to Konark and Puri where asked to stop for routine check at Jaleshwar border.
I was asked to show the Registration Certificate for my car.
After noting the unladen weight of the car, i was asked to pay Rs 800. As road-tax for using the Orissa Roads for 6months.
Being aware of the RTO rules, i felt it to be wrong as i was traveling in a private vehicle, that is not used commercially either. And if am not staying in Orissa for more than 30days, then am not going to pay Road Tax. As am using vehicle only for travel purpose. Even on showing the Toll Receipts the person in charge was adamant.
The person who was insisting on paying the Road Tax, was from Commercial Vehicle Dept, he has no right to authority to Stop a Private Vehicle.
Now, surprise this guy showed us the Receipt Challan book. Now before us 19 other private vehicles had payed the unlawful "TAX".
We demanded to see the public notification. But we where shown a page that didn't bear signature of authorized signatory, nor any rubber Stamp.
Xerox contained Amount of Tax. for 6 months and 12 Months and 60 Months.
We were not impressed.
We protested, and seeing us other private cars joined our protest campaign and soon the indecent looked like a mass agitation. we waited there for almost 1 Hour as it was getting late and collectively the Vehicles from kolkata decided to move on.
We felt, Toll Taxes being collected in Orissa to be on the Higher Side. And Number of Toll Booths are very frequent.
Few being 20Kms apart. Toll Taxes as much as Rs45 for single pass and 65 for Multiple, where as the Toll Taxes in WB are around 30 and 35 for Single pass and 50-55 for multiple pass.
Something fishy is going on. As none of the Toll Booths have any computer. And the receipts given to us where hand written. Also i don't remember spotting Rate Charts in any of the Toll Stations in Orissa.
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