LAHORE: The Excise and Taxation Department has been sitting on 1.8 million number plates and around 700,000 vehicle registration smart cards in the province.

The crisis stems from the fact that the firm tasked with issuing number plates and smart cards has refused to carry on the project after cost escalation in the wake of rupee depreciation. The department has failed to award contract to a new firm.

The situation is a nightmare for the vehicle owners.

“Though I applied for the registration of my new car in July last, the department has yet to issue computerised registration number plate to me,” said a man a who was standing at a window at an excise and taxation officer’s office in Lahore on Tuesday.

“Like me, many others too have been waiting for plates for the last one year or so. I’ve been facing too much problems while driving the car without any number plates, as traffic police imposed fine on me twice for not displaying computerised plates.”

The crisis worsened in the department last year after its agreement with the number plates manufacturing contractor expired in the last quarter of 2018. After the expiry of the contract, the department invited bids for a new contract. But one of the contestants challenged the bidding process in the court that issued a stay order.

“Actually, the department gave contract to the previous firm,” says a senior official of the department on the condition of anonymity. “After sometime the firm stopped working due to hike in dollar exchange rate that escalated the cost of the project. The department invited new bids, but one of the contestants challenged the whole bidding process that halted the number plates manufacturing work. Later, all contestants backed out of the process keeping in view massive increase in the dollar exchange rate from Rs106 to Rs160.”

He said even if the department began the process again, it would take another three to six months to finalise and award the project to a new firm and issue of plates to motorists whose cases had been pending for a long time. To a question, the official said the dollar rate was a major reason behind the issue, since the raw material for plates manufacturing was imported from Germany and the United States.

According to him, another reason was the fear prevailing among the top officials concerned in revision of the project cost as no one was ready to do so keeping in view the ‘actions’ of the corruption watchdogs. “When you launch a campaign to create fear unnecessarily, you lose trust and confidence of the officers. And this is the issue that has brought our economic growth below 2 per cent reportedly,” he deplored, advising the government and accountability agencies to avoid making the state machinery panicked.

“At present, the backlog of the number plates is about 1.8 million across the province,” he added.

Another official of the department blamed the contracting firm for the fiasco. Similarly, the government too released payments to the contractor by using delaying tactics. He said the people were much worried about the situation since they could neither put their vehicles on road nor sell them due to unavailability of documents (card and plate).

“Many applicants come to the offices of ETOs in Lahore and exchange words with officials. The Lahore offices face a huge backlog of over 600,000 plates and over 100,000 cards. We suggested that the government at least stop charging fee from vehicle owners but the officials told us to continue receiving official fee from them,” he said.

When contacted, Excise and Taxation Department Director General Sohail Shehzad denied a huge backlog in the office. “It is true that there were some issues related to contracts for number plates. But it happened due to hike in dollar rate and not due to the negligence of the government. Moreover, the litigation too was another matter that caused creating such a huge backlog,” he clarified.

He said currently there was a backlog of 400,000 smart cards. “But I will give you exact figure of cards and plates later on,” he added. He said all issues had almost been resolved. Now, it may take three to six months to make the situation normal.”

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2020