No service provider found for collecting motor vehicle taxes
Mahmuda Shaolin | Wednesday, 23 July 2008
A move of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) to appoint a service provider for collection of Motor Vehicle Tax (MVT) and other fees has drawn poor response despite extending the timeframe twice for appointing such a firm.
BRTA floated a tender seeking 'expression of interest' (EOI) from financial and non-financial institutions by June 24. After getting poor response, the deadline was extended until June 29 and then again to July 21 but still failed to receive any competent institution to carry out the job, said a BRTA official.
"Finally, we were compelled to extend the deadline for submission of EOI until August 27 to appoint an efficient 'service provider' for the purpose," Sitangshu Shekhar Bishwas, Deputy Director (Engineering) of BRTA said Tuesday.
Bangladesh Postal Department (BPD) is now collecting MVT and other fees manually through its 91 post offices. In 2007, BPO launched an online service in its Dhaka's General Post Office (GPO) and Mirpur BRTA Post Office. BPD charged three per cent as commission on the amount it collected, the BRTA official said.
"Our objective is to provide a competitive and standard service to the customers who want to pay the MVT and fees without any harassment," he said.
BTRA's plan to appoint a service provider that must have online capability to collect MVT and fees is to will lessen the hassles and expedite the process of collecting such charges from thousands of vehicle owners, he said.
"We'll select four to seven institutions among those who would participate in the tender to implement the online service," he added.
Priority would be given to the organisations that are technically and financially sound and have strong infrastructure to provide services, he said.
Replying to a question, he said that BRTA would appoint the institution that would charge the lowest commission rate.
"The online service will ease the processing time. It will replace the age-old manual system, which is full of errors, costly and time-consuming. It is guaranteed to be error-free," he told the FE.
BRTA floated a tender seeking 'expression of interest' (EOI) from financial and non-financial institutions by June 24. After getting poor response, the deadline was extended until June 29 and then again to July 21 but still failed to receive any competent institution to carry out the job, said a BRTA official.
"Finally, we were compelled to extend the deadline for submission of EOI until August 27 to appoint an efficient 'service provider' for the purpose," Sitangshu Shekhar Bishwas, Deputy Director (Engineering) of BRTA said Tuesday.
Bangladesh Postal Department (BPD) is now collecting MVT and other fees manually through its 91 post offices. In 2007, BPO launched an online service in its Dhaka's General Post Office (GPO) and Mirpur BRTA Post Office. BPD charged three per cent as commission on the amount it collected, the BRTA official said.
"Our objective is to provide a competitive and standard service to the customers who want to pay the MVT and fees without any harassment," he said.
BTRA's plan to appoint a service provider that must have online capability to collect MVT and fees is to will lessen the hassles and expedite the process of collecting such charges from thousands of vehicle owners, he said.
"We'll select four to seven institutions among those who would participate in the tender to implement the online service," he added.
Priority would be given to the organisations that are technically and financially sound and have strong infrastructure to provide services, he said.
Replying to a question, he said that BRTA would appoint the institution that would charge the lowest commission rate.
"The online service will ease the processing time. It will replace the age-old manual system, which is full of errors, costly and time-consuming. It is guaranteed to be error-free," he told the FE.