Vehicle registration, sight-seeing likely to cost more

Finance ministry is preparing a list of the services where user charges can be increased

Charges for government services such as licence fee for vehicle registration and entrance tickets for tourist places might go up, with the finance ministry pushing for a higher levy.

The proposal is aimed at rationalising the charges in line with economic growth and inflation. Many of the charges have not been revised for years and sometimes the government is not even able to recover its cost, leave alone depriving the exchequer of more revenue.

The ministry is preparing a list of the services where user charges can be increased. It might soon write to all administrative ministries, pressing the need for the same. This would add to the revenue kitty of both, the Centre and the states.

"Easily, this can give Rs 10,000 crore more. Though the funds will go to the state governments in most of the cases, it will help improve the combined fiscal position of the governments," said a finance ministry official, requesting anonymity.

The official said the focus was on getting more from such sources as non-tax revenue since not much could be done to maximise tax revenue given the state of the economy.

The issues were also highlighted in a presentation to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley this week.

An increase might also be considered for charges related to public works, patents, security, copyright, posts etc. Some of the other general, social, community and economic services provided by the government include education, sports, art and culture, medical and public health, housing, security, royalty from petroleum, fee received by registrar of companies, telecommunications, health services, education, broadcasting, transport and civil aviation, among others.

According to the interim Budget, total non-tax revenue in 2014-15 is expected at Rs 1,80,713 crore, lower than Rs 1,93,225 crore in the previous year. Of this, revenue from general services is pegged at 12,954 crore, over eight per cent higher than Rs 11,954 crore in 2013-14, while the revenue from social and community services is estimated at Rs 2,850 crore, more than double of Rs 1,355 crore earned in the last year. From economic services, however, it is projected to go down to Rs 64,266 crore, compared with Rs 66,284 crore in 2013-14.

In the past, too, the finance ministry had tried to review charges for various services where the cost of delivery was higher compared to the revenue generated from such services but the efforts did not yield much result.