Journalism of Courage
The state Anti-Corruption Bureau has nearly 71,300 documents from various regional transport offices (RTOs) in the state during a raid on Tuesday. The raid was part of the probe into the alleged irregularities in the payment of vehicle professional tax collected from tourist and light carrier vehicles including trucks,taxis,tempos and delivery vans.
Vishwas Pandhare,superintendent,ACB,Pune,said that they have seized about 29,000 documents from Pune RTO,22,000 from Chinchwad,10,000 from Sangli,6,500 from Solapur and 3,800 from Kohapur for further investigation.Pandhare said ACB teams would be studying each and every document case-wise to probe the alleged irregularities in payment of vehicle professional tax.
The ACB would also seek help from sales tax officers if required,he said.
The Pune unit of ACB had conducted raids at five RTOs Pune,Pimpri-Chinchwad,Sangli,Kolhapur and Solapur on Tuesday following orders from its Mumbai headquarters.
The RTOs collect vehicle professional tax from tourist and light carrier vehicles and auto rickshaws. The ACB conducted a state wide raids of RTOs after receiving a complaint about the allegedly irregularities in payment of professional tax. ACB has maintained secrecy about the complainant.
There are 75,000 such vehicles in Pune who are supposed to pay professional tax. .The Pune RTO collects about Rs 3.77 crore of vehicle professional tax every year. This year so far we have collected Rs 1.88 crore. The Pune division has set a target of collecting professional tax of Rs 8.01 crores from all five RTOs in its jurisdiction. So far Rs 4.15 crores has been collected.
