Pune:
Schools in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad areas that own buses to ferry children to and from schools, and private buses used only for transportation of students now have to pay less tax.
According to a notification issued by the state home department, buses that are owned or taken on contract by school authorities and used exclusively as school buses will get a tax rebate. The notification, issued on October 16 this year, has already come into effect.
As per the Bombay Motor Vehicles Tax Act (1958), schools owning buses and contractors using their buses only to cater students have to pay a yearly tax at the rate of Rs633 per seat.
"But now the annual tax would be only Rs100 per seat," said the deputy regional transport officer and incharge of Pimpri-Chinchwad office, Jitendra Patil.
The new tax structure would benefit about 280 buses registered as school buses in Pune and about 115 in Pimpri-Chinchwad areas, besides about 480 contract buses in Pune that ferry only school students.
Regional transport authority (RTA) member, Baba Shinde said, "It would be applicable only to those school buses that carry children up to standard X -- the primary and secondary sections of the schools. It is not applicable to buses that carry students of junior and senior colleges," he said.
Shinde said the state home department is also in the process of bringing out the Maharashtra Motor Vehicles (Regulations for School Buses), Rules, 2010. The rules entail the dos and don'ts for school bus owners.
Patil said the rules would help the transport department to standardise school buses, like ambulances and fire tenders.
"School buses would be yellow for people to easily identify them and drive carefully near such a bus to avoid mishaps," Patil said.
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