The registration counts on day of Gudi Padwa is a one that shall be looked upon for the market study, after all as an auto journalists we are needed to keep a tab on such outputs. Reportedly, this festive occasion proved a bit tad for the Vashi RTO. They hadn’t registered a single car on the day which is considered as New Year for the Maharashtrians. New purchases are usually made by Maharashtrians on this day marking it as a factor of good luck for them. Last year, on the same day department registered 55 vehicles. Owing to the sluggish market condition, car buyers must be shying away from making the purchases. As per a report, during the past five days (including Gudi Padwa on Saturday) 702 vehicles including two-and four-wheelers were registered as against 775 automobiles filled the spot last year in the same tenure.
As per the car dealers of Navi Mumbai, sales were low by 20-25% than the previous year during this festive occasion.
Hence, the government bodies also set their targets for functioning, where this Vashi RTO is tipped to attain the collection of Rs 237 crore for the fiscal year 2014-15. Till date, they have managed to collect only Rs 150 crore. Officials cite LBT (local body tax) as the major discouraging factor for the so-called downturn in numbers. The road transport office of this Mumbai suburb earns the chunk of revenue from car registration, but an additional bulge of LBT has dispersed away the buyers from registering their vehicles in this office.
Seeing other RTOs on the same day, it was Andheri that received the maximum number of registration: 40 vehicles, followed by south Mumbai’s Tardeo just fallen short of a single unit at 39 vehicles. Last year, the turnout at Vashi on the day of Gudi Padwa was 55, Tardeo stood with 122, and Andheri topped the chart with a sky-rocketing number of 300.