The Motor Traffic Department, popularly known as RMV (Registrar of Motor Vehicles) this week revealed that 371,141 new motor cars, three wheelers and motor cycles have been registered during the first ten months of this year. This was an increase of 48.5% from 249,935 similar vehicles registered during the same period last year.
Vehicle registrations hit a new high with the number of motor cars registered with the department crossing 48,650 mark up to October this year an increase of 248.1% from 13,976 cars during the same period last year. Three-wheelers and motor cycles bought mainly from India have reached 322,491 during the 10-month period. According to RMV statistics, the number of three wheelers, widely known as the common man’s taxi, jumped 61.84 % to 112,433 units up to October this year.
Motor Traffic Commissioner General, B. D. L. Dharmapriya told the Business Times that three wheeler imports are rising sharply and Sri Lanka imports almost all its three wheelers from India, barring a handful from China. He revealed that 69,472 three wheelers were registered with the department up to October 2010. Motorcycle registrations shot up by 26.14% from 166,527 units from 2010 (to October) to 210,058 units this year. Of the 20 million population, approximately one among five people owns a motor cycle or a three wheeler, he said.
Mr Dharmapriya also predicted a significant increase of motor cycles in the coming months when considering the number of applications received by the RMV to have their motor cycles registered. Considering the record number of 5000 applications received daily by the RMV, the services of 70 more employees are needed to provide a better service to the public, he said.
The Commissioner General also expressed concern over the lack of space in the RMV office to preserve 3.7 million vehicle registration files. "New buildings are needed to use as record rooms," as the present number of 3.7 million files will be doubled in the years to come, he said. He added that a temporary arrangement has been made to store the old files in a container brought from Werahera motor traffic department branch.
Sri Lanka’s motor car imports rose after the government cut import taxes on vehicles and also gave reduced-tax permits to state sector employees in June 2010. In April this year Sri Lanka raised import duties on several categories of petrol-engine cars and three wheelers with steeper increases seen in larger hybrid vehicles, which had exceptionally low taxes earlier.
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