The Maharashtra Tourist Taxi Union, an organization of tourist taxi operators, on Friday demanded immediate reduction in road tax and insurance premium and urged the state government to frame a policy for car rental business in the tourism sector.
Addressing a news conference on Friday, president of the organization Ramesh Karpre said, "The state government's lethargic approach and continued neglect of demands by tourist taxi operators is hampering the business. The government, this year, increased the annual road tax by more than four fold from Rs 400 per seat to Rs 2,000 per seat."
Insurance premium has also been increased by 60%. Despite repeated dialogues with government officials; there is no response to our demands."
Karpe said that a letter was submitted to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan three months ago urging him to bring down the road tax. There is no communication from Chavan's office in the matter. Karpe pointed out that only Maharashtra has put heavy tax burden on tourist taxis.
The government should explain why they were burdening the tourist taxies when neighboring states do not impose such huge taxes, he said. The government's policy is hampering not only business of operators, but there is adverse impact on tourism as well, he stated. According to the organization, there are about 10,000 tourist taxi operators in Pune and Mumbai.
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