LUCKNOW: The online road tax payment system for commercial vehicles will be made functional on Friday after the formal inauguration by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. The chief minister will inaugurate two schemes of the transport department, a multi-option vehicle tax payment system and radio taxis.The online payment system will be made functional at RTO Lucknow and Ghaziabad on Friday. During the first seven days, the tax payment facility will be provided for goods vehicles, after that the facility will be available for all commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles.Subsequently, the fully functional tax payment facility for both goods and passenger vehicles will be extended to all 75 district transport offices in the state.

After the implementation of the system fully, owners of about 7.25 lakh commercial vehicles registered in the state would be able to make online payment of their vehicle tax through the multi-option payment gateway of  State Bank of India which will enable them to make the payment through SBI internet banking or through ATM cum debit/credit card of all leading nationalized/non-nationalized banks.

Taxpayers will get a confirmatory SMS on their registered mobile number both from the department as well as the bank portal. This would be in addition to the actual printable receipt which will be generated subsequent to the completion of the online banking process.

Radio taxis in 13 cities from today

The radio taxi service, after the inauguration on Friday, will be available in 13 cities which have municipal corporations – Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Allahabad, Varanasi, Jhansi, Aligarh, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Bareilly and Gorakhpur.

The dial-a-cab service would be available at the number 4343434.

For vehicles with a seating capacity of five (including driver) fare would be Rs 50 for first 2.5 km and Rs 20 thereafter for every km or part thereof. For vehicles with a seating capacity of more than five but not more than 7 (including driver) fare would be Rs 50 for first 2.5 km and Rs 25 thereafter for every km or part thereof.

The minimum fare for each vehicle would be Rs 50. Night charges between 11 pm and 5 am will be 25% extra of the regular fare. There will be no waiting charges for up to half an hour, beyond which the waiting charges will be Rs 50 per hour.