 |
|
| Kathmandu Saturday March 16, 2002 Chaitra 03, 2058. |
|
House approves bill to form
powerful Roads Board
Post Report
KATHMANDU, March 15: A key bill granting the government
powers to raise taxes on road use was approved today by the House of Representatives.
The Road Board Bill proposes the formation of
an autonomous Roads Board that will be empowered to collect taxes from road users on all
the major and minor highways throughout the Kingdom.
The government estimates that Rs 1.3 billion
will be raised in annual revenues from the tax alone, which will go into maintaining the
roads. The government estimates that the value of public roads in the Kingdom is about Rs
60 billion.
A fund, to be set up under this new Bill, has
been expected to collect some one billion rupees in the initial year as tax to meet the
annual maintenance expense, which gradually decreases every year and the government
won’t have to allocate maintenance budget for roads after ten years.
The fund initially will be set up with
assistance from World Bank, the British aid agency DFID and Swiss Development Corporation.
Certain percentage of the tax collected by the board will be handed over to concerned
roads for maintenance.
The board will enjoy the right to collect the
tax from the users of the road, from those using extra- loaded vehicles and the vehicles
bearing foreign number plates entering the country.
The board will be powerful enough to impose
fines on drivers, slap bans on movement of any vehicles, suspend the driving license and
vehicles registration and to auction the vehicles.
The government has claimed that some 50,000
peoples will get direct jobs for 150 days a year if the board is set up.
The board will be an autonomous body
comprising of representatives from Ministry of Finance, Local Development, Industries,
Commerce and Supply and Department of Roads while the FNCCI, Federation of District
Development Committees, Municipality Association, Engineering Association, transport
entrepreneurs, consumers and farmers will also be represented.
The secretary at the ministry of Physical
Planning and Works will be heading the board.
Other Stories
|
