In the revised budget of the next year, the Finance Minister of Kerala, T.M. Thomas recently proposed in Thiruvananthapuram that all the up in years vehicles, both transport vehicles over ten years and non-transport vehicles over fifteen years, shall be levied a 10% additional green tax in order to discourage the use of old vehicles and reduce the pollution they cause. The decision was well supported by the State Transport Minister, S. Ananthakrishnan, saying that those who fail to pay the tax will not be eligible to render any services from Motor Vehicle Department.
The Tax to be paid is as follows:
Transport vehicles/annually-
Cars, motorcycles and other three-wheels : Rs. 100
Light Motor Vehicles and four- whelers : Rs. 200
Mid sized Motor vehicles : Rs. 300
Non-Transport Vehicles/ five years-
Heavy Motor Vehicles: Rs. 400
Light Motor Vehicles and four- wheelers: Rs. 400
Cars, Motorscycles and three-wheelers : Rs. 50
Kerala has almost 1 crore registered vehicles running on its roads. The number of vehicles that are old are still to be numbered, for which they are re-registering the vehicles under green tax, which is expected to generate a revenue of Rs. 8 Crore. The shift towards technologically upgraded vehicles will change the face of Kerala's automobile usage, decrease noise and air pollution and increase safety. It will also create a leveled tax paying environment in the state.
The tax shall also be levied on the non-state vehicles on the Check-posts. Under section 177, failure to paying the tax will lead to a penalty of Rs. 100, wihhc will be increased to Rs. 300 if repeated.
However, this was disregarded by the Chairman of Maruti Suzuki, commenting that "They're losing site of the overall objective of creating employment and growing the manufacturing sector. Kerala talks about growing the Manufacturing but they are going to put this type of tax on manufactured goods which will restrict the growth of industry. I think no one is going to look at Kerala as a possible investment destination."
