State Road Transport Corporations get tax exemption

Bengaluru: The government has taken steps to reduce some of the burden of various Karnataka road transport corporations which are facing more financial difficulties due to the ‘Shakti’ scheme. The state government has announced tax exemption for transport corporations like KSRTC, BMTC etc. A total of Rs 541.87 crore will be exempted from motor vehicle tax for four corporations in one year. CM Siddaramaiah has agreed to this move proposed by Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy.

Shakti Yojana was one of the election guarantees of the Congress party. After coming to power, the government implemented this scheme without much delay. This is a scheme that allows all women in the state to travel in government buses for free. After the implementation of Shakti Yojana, the number of passengers in buses of all the four transport corporations has increased. However, the loss burden of corporations has also increased. Tax exemption measures are one of the weapons available to the government to mitigate this.

Exemption in Motor Vehicle Tax for Transport Corporations in total exempt amount in a year is Rs 541.87 crore, out of which KSRTC exemption of Rs 243.52 crore, BMTC exemption of Rs 119.88 crore, NWKRTC (North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation) exemption of Rs 103.91 crore and KKRTC (Kalyana Karnataka Transport Corporation) exemption of Rs 114.16 crore.

This is not the first time that transport corporations are being given tax exemption on motor vehicles. Last year, the then government had given tax exemption amounting to more than Rs 1,500 crore. Before Shakti Yojana, the total revenue of transport corporations was over Rs 8,000 crore in a year. There was a revenue loss of over Rs 4,000 crore due to subsidy and other reasons.

In this the subsidy amount should be filled by the government. However, various governments have so far kept arrears of subsidy amounting to thousands of crores of rupees without transferring it to the transport corporations. In the meantime, the income of the corporations has been further reduced by the Shakti scheme.

The government is trying to reduce some of the loss burden by giving a motor tax exemption of Rs 542 crore.