Revenue Licences Give a Tremendous Boost to the Finances of the North and East Provinces of Sri Lanka

04th October 2009, www.nation.lk

While the Cabinet granted approval this week to put up a new building for the Department of Motor Traffic in Jaffna at a cost of Rs. 19 million on an urgent basis, authorities are finally reaping millions in revenue from motor vehicles, which were hitherto reaped by the LTTE.

Motor Traffic Commissioner B. Wijayaratne said as a first step he had obtained a form of amnesty from the Defence Ministry for vehicle owners who had hitherto obtained Tiger issued vehicle revenue licences to obtain the new revenue licence from the state without having to produce previous years’ licences as normally required.

The revenue licence issuing being a devolved subject, all that income will be a tremendous boost to the finances of the two provinces. But, the central government and the private sector too are in for new sources of income from issuing of new driving licences, registering of new vehicles in the region and from insuring hitherto uninsured vehicles.

Jaffna GA, K. Ganesh said that hitherto only motorcycles were registered there, but now even motor vehicles can be registered.

Wijayaratne said he had already linked up Jaffna with the central computer system of the Department at Narahenpita, along with its offices in Kurunegala, Kandy, Gampaha and Kalutara.

The objective was to link up all 25 district offices with the central system to have an up-to-date system that can provide an enhanced service to the public and the work was in progress.

Motor Traffic Commissioner said they were also in the process of recruiting 15 more motor vehicle examiners through competitive examination conducted by the Examination Department, especially with the impending extension of the vehicle exhaust testing to provinces.