Tuesday, September 19 2006 17:49 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Centre today (Sept 19,2006) voiced concern on the slow progress of computerisation of Road Transport Offices (RTOs) in the states and asked them to speed up the work.

"State Goverments are required to take steps not only to computerise the RTOs but also to put all records on computer. This would facilitate uniformity of the records throughout the country and ultimately help transfer vehicles in an expeditious manner," Minister for Road Transport, Shipping and Highways T R Baalu said.

The Minister was addressing a Conference on Auto Retail: Framework for Growth.

Referring to the concerns expressed by the automobile dealers on issues relating to registration and re-registration of vehicles, he said his ministry would ponder upon them carefully before taking a decision in this regard.

On the issue of non-refund of one-time tax paid in a state in case of transfer of vehicles to other states, Baalu said they should gear up their machinery to facilitate the transfer process.

Expressing concern on the advertisements of certain automobile companies, which depicts over-speeding as a virtue, the Minister pointed out "We know that one of the main reasons of road accident is over-speeding." He pointed out that over 92,000 people were killed in more than 4 lakh reported accidents in 2004 that involved huge social cost estimated at two to three per cent of the GDP.

Baalu also asked the automobile companies to modernise their vehicles by installing GPS technology.