Transport entrepreneurs line up to register their firms at OCR

Kathmandu, April 25

Following the decision of the government to scrap all transport bodies (transport committees and associations) to bring syndicate system in the sector to an end, transport entrepreneurs are increasingly registering their businesses at the Office of Company Registrar (OCR).

While announcing its decision not to renew the registration of transport bodies with immediate effect on April 18, the government had stated that any transport business seeking registration should come through the company registration process.

Till date, 19 transport entrepreneurs have already completed the registration of their firms at the OCR (since April 11), according to Rajendra Thapa, information officer at OCR.

Similarly, OCR has approved the applications of 57 names for registration of transport companies over the period of last two weeks. “These entrepreneurs are busy submitting the required documents for registration,” said Thapa.

While OCR is going through 35 new applications for names of transport companies, it has already rejected the submission of 62 transport entrepreneurs after their proposed names clashed with those of other existing firms.

The OCR statistics show that a total of 173 transport entrepreneurs have approached the office to register their firms.

Besides attempting to break syndicate in the transport sector, the government had also made it mandatory for transport bodies to register themselves as companies because they had become commercial in nature though they were initially registered as non-profit bodies at the District Administration Offices (DAOs) - a provision that did not make them liable to pay income tax to the government despite making huge profits.

Once transport bodies start operating after being registered as companies, it will directly increase revenue of the government from the public transportation sector. The public transportation sector, which is believed to record annual transaction worth more than Rs two billion, has remained beyond the tax net of the government so far.