Route permits discarded for unregistered committees

KATHMANDU, June 3: The Department of Transportation Management (DoTM) has canceled the route permits of all vehicles operated by transportation committees registered under Associations Registration Act 2034 BS.

The government had given deadline till Saturday, June 1, for the transportation committees registered as associations to get registered as companies and to get listed in the department.

The department has said that the route renewal, registration, and permit of transportation committees registered as associations instead of companies have been discarded.

According to Company Registrar's Office, 160 committees have been registered as companies.

“We had given a deadline for registration till Saturday night,” said registrar of the office Bhuwan Hari Aryal. He said that the office was carrying out internal works on the registered companies.

“Verification of the companies is going on, therefore, the number may increase or decrease,” he said.

He said that as the entrepreneurs waited until the last hour, there was a huge crowd at the office.

Kumar Prashad Dahal, director general of the department, said that the entrepreneurs who have not been registered as companies will not be given registration, renewal, or the route permit.

According to him, as authorized data was not received from the Registrar's Office, the unregistered committees were yet to be identified.

“After we get the data, we will identify the registered and unregistered entrepreneurs,” he said.

However, Saroj Sitaula, general secretary of Federation of Nepalese National Transport Entrepreneurs Association, said that the transport entrepreneurs under the federation have been registered as companies.

“Some may have missed to do it, because of time limitation. The federation will conduct separate assessment of their case,” he said.

He said that there was a problem of management of the Company Registrar's Office. “Though the office has opened branches in Itahari and Butwal, service was not provided from there," he said. "The government opened two offices, but could not provide service. So, the entrepreneurs had to come to Kathmandu spending their time and money.”

Registrar Aryal accepted some shortcoming in management, and said that they were not able to provide service from the branch offices in lack of staff as posts were not created. “We will start the office as soon as the posts are created,” he said.

The department had formulated a working procedure in April last year to convert the committees into companies. The deadline for doing so was extended thrice due to pressure from entrepreneurs.

RISK OF SYNDICATE AGAIN THROUGH COMPANIES
Transport activist Ram Bahadur Thapa said that the entrepreneurs have again tried to create syndicate through companies.

“The government has indirectly kept a provision which can revive syndicate,” he said. He said that according to Company Act 2063, in a private company when there are only 101 shareholders, syndicate could not be created.

"However, the transport entrepreneurs have kept more than 10,000 shareholders in their companies, as the government has not set limitation for it. Therefore syndicate can be created again,” he said.

According to President of Consumer Rights Protection Forum, Jyoti Baniya, inaction on the part of the government was helping create syndicates all the time. "The government had amended laws which helped syndicate. So, it missed the opportunity to stop syndicate,” he said.Meanwhile, director general Dahal said that syndicates will not be created after switching the committees into companies. “The entrepreneurs which have been registered under companies can be brought into the legal fold,” he said.

 
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