The Punjab Vigilance Bureau conducted a surprise checking at interstate tax collection centre Shambhu near Rajpura in district Patiala which led to 286 percent surge in recording of vehicles and revenue collection enhanced to 239 percent. In addition to this, some discrepancies were also noticed at the barrier by the vigilance sleuths.Disclosing this Punjab Vigilance Bureau Chief Mr. B.K. Uppal said the Bureau had received complaints regarding overcharging during collection of interstate taxes and irregularities in entries of vehicles at 'Shambu barrier' to evade taxes. He added that to probe the allegations, the Bureau on Friday constituted a team led by Pritipal Singh SP EOW which have reported that no display board showing details of facilitation fees or user charges was put up at the collection office. Besides, an employee was found working on 24 hours duty despite deployment of four employees on 8 hours duty roster. He informed that Vigilance would send a detailed report to the excise and taxation department to take further action on the basis of these findings.
Giving more details Mr. B.K. Uppal said the special team have inspected tax documents of vehicles and taxies from 8 am in the morning to late evening in which 38 trucks, 75 mini trucks and 18 tempo travels, 4 luxury tourist buses, 86 cars, Innovas and jeeps were monitored. He added that some vehicle owners were found defaulter in deposit of road taxes and Rs. 15,230 were collected as taxes from the erring owners on the spot.
The Vigilance chief Mr. Uppal further revealed that the Bureau has scrutinized collection records of the barrier pertaining to previous ten days and found that only 150-200 interstate vehicles were shown in the entries with collections of estimated Rs. 2 lakh tax in 24 hours. Comparatively the vigilance team has reported record entry of about 450 vehicles and Rs 5.38 lakh were recovered as interstate taxes during the same duration. He added that with this inspection entries of vehicles at the barrier has zoomed to nearly 286% and State revenue enhanced by 239%. He categorically said the Bureau would continue its inspections in the future also to check evasion of taxes.