According to Department of Transport Management (DoTM), a total of 201,787 vehicles were registered during the review year, up from 102,570 recorded a year earlier.[break]
During the year, registration of two-wheelers reached to 168,707, which is more than 83 percent of the total registration in 2009/10. Similarly, registration of jeep, car, pick-up van and microbus combined has been reported at 14,388, whereas the registration of tractors and power trailers combined reached 11,460.
Registration of bus, minibus, truck, mini-truck and tripper combined reached 5,857, while the registration of earthmoving equipment -- dozer, loader, dumper, crane and excavator - was recorded at 1,335. Similarly, nine and 31 vehicles were registered in tempo and ´others´ category respectively.
With new registrations in 2009/10, the total number of vehicles registered across the country has climbed to 1,015,271, up from 813,484 vehicles registered till the end of 2008/09.
“Easy access to vehicle loan is one of the main reasons behind the sharp rise in vehicle registration in 2009/10,” Anil Gurung, director of DoTM, told Republica. He further added that the growing automobile market will not cool unless the government comes up with strict laws to discourage imports of small vehicles.
In a bid to discourage imports of small vehicles, the government tightened lending to unproductive sector in the second half of 2009/10.
Transport Management Office of Bagmati Zone reported the highest registration with 82,204 vehicles out of which 69,484 were two-wheelers. Similarly, Transport Management Office of Dhaulagiri Zone recorded the lowest registration of 933 in the review period.
Despite huge rise in the registration of vehicles during 2009/10, DoTM failed to meet the revenue target for the year due to low progress in collecting vehicle tax and income tax from the transport sector. The office collected Rs 4.56 billion in the form of vehicle tax, license fee, road construction, maintenance tax and income tax against the target of Rs 4.65 billion during the year.
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