Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has extended the validity of the scheme offering one-time settlement of arrears of motor vehicle tax and penalty up to March 31, 2025.
As per a notification issued by the Commerce and Transport department, the period of validity of the scheme which was in force for a period of one year from December 28, 2023, has been extended up to March 31, 2025.
Notably, the state government had introduced the scheme providing for one-time waiver/concession of motor vehicle tax arrears and penalties for old vehicle owners.
The scheme had been introduced after it was noticed that motor vehicle tax arrears and penalty were pending against more than 50,000 vehicle owners. Despite tax recovery notice and conduct of special drives, arrear tax could not be collected from all.
The reason for such pending arrear tax is default on the part of vehicle owners in depositing the tax in time for a certain period which led to imposition of cumulative penalty on defaulting owners. When the amount becomes high, owners were unable to deposit the tax and penalty. In some cases, owners approach the legal forum for waiver of the penalty and the litigation continues.
