Govt of India might issue National Permit for private cars

The Centre is consulting state governments to draw up a roadmap for the transport sector that would include capping registration of new vehicles in cities grappling with congestion and pollution.

The restrictions could include disincentives on purchase of second cars and measures like congestion taxes -bold steps to deal with the sharp increase in number of private vehicles burdening public infrastructure.

Capping the number of new cars is among a slew of proposals the Centre put forward at a meeting with state transport secretaries here on Friday . This will also be tabled before an empowered group of state ministers next week to build strong political consensus across states and parties.
As of March 2015, Bengaluru had 10 lakh cars and a total of 58 lakh vehicles Delhi has 27.9 lakh cars out of a total 88.27 lakh vehicles and Mumbai has 8.5 lakh cars out of 27 lakh vehicles. The upcoming Centre-state consultations may need to also consider the rapid rise in the number of two-wheelers since their share has increased to almost 72% in the country's urban areas, according to the latest Handbook of Urban Statistics.

Other reform measures for the sector include online issuance of learner's licence and stricter and fully automated test norms for obtaining a permanent driving licence, eliminating frequent checking of vehicles on same route and issuing national permit for all private cars.
Issuance of national permit for cars will eliminate the need of getting an NOC from state transport departments each time a vehicle owner shifts his state of residence.

"The roadmap is to ensure there is ease of transport and enhancing customer experience in transaction with transport and police departments.
One of the proposals is to have a common portal for tax payments such as entry tax, state permit fee and other such charges. Since improving public transport is the key to check growth of private vehicles, there is a proposal to liberalise the sector to allow more private players to run buses," said a government official.

(Source: Toi, Bangalore edition dated 2016-04-23)