Compulsory for second-hand car dealers to procure licence: Official

Kolkata: The state Transport department has made it compulsory for second-hand dealers to procure licences to keep a record of second-hand vehicle dealings happening across the state.

A list of such licensed dealers will be released by the department on their website within a month. The Regional Transport Offices (RTO) across the state have also been instructed to organise meetings with the dealers’ associations to get more of them to register with the department.

“The process of application for the licence has already started. We have received some 15 to 16 applications across the state from dealers. Since it has just started, it will take about 20 days to a month to get the first list of dealers. We shall upload this list on the state Transport department’s website,” a senior official said. This step has been taken to keep a record of the second-hand cars being sold and bought across the state.

After the vehicle is sold off to a dealer, the dealer will take ownership of the vehicle and the previous owner, who had sold the vehicle, will be exempted. To ensure this, an agreement will also be signed between the two parties. According to the officials, the department has not been monitoring the business of buying and selling old cars. Complaints about being cheated by buying ‘second hand’ cars were being filed in the office.

In many cases, after the transaction was completed, the buyer came to know that their car was not insured, and road tax or CF was not paid.

Now, every month the companies have to submit all the information about the sale of old cars in writing and digitally, according to a news report.