While registration of vehicles saw a sharp rise over the last fiscal year, the number of fitness clearances has dropped to a seven-year low, raising further concerns over road safety.

At least 5.42 lakh registered vehicles have been operating on the roads  without the mandatory fitness clearance, which happened mainly due to poor monitoring by the authorities.

Officials concerned said a rise in advance income tax amount from July 1, 2021, and the decision to give fitness clearances to only three types of private vehicles biennially, instead of annually, from January 2020, are major reasons behind the poor number of vehicles with fitness clearance.

Apart from vehicles that have been registered but lack fitness clearance, there are thousands of unregistered vehicles whose fitness status is anyone's

guess.

Unfit vehicles are one of the major reasons behind road crashes, due to which the number of lives lost is growing.

At least 3,186 people were killed and 3,500 injured in 3,776 road crashes in the first eight months of this year, according to police reports.

The numbers, however, were much lower than the estimates made by other non-government organisations.

Till June this year, 52.92 lakh vehicles, mostly motorbikes, were registered with Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA). Of them, 5.23 lakh got registered in last fiscal year, and 4.24 the fiscal before.

All registered transport, except for motorcycles, are required to be cleared for fitness.

However, new cars, SUVs and microbuses are not required to have it in the first five years. After that period, they need to get fitness clearances once in every two years.

Only 5.64 lakh vehicles got fitness clearance in the last fiscal year, which is the lowest number since 2014-15, shows BRTA data.

Even in 2020-21 when BRTA offices remained closed due to Covid-19 pandemic, the number of vehicles with fitness clearance was 6.75 lakh.

A top BRTA official said the amount of advance income tax a vehicle owner has to pay for fitness clearance saw around 50 percent rise since July 1, 2021.

He added the owner of a vehicle, between 1501cc to 2000cc, now has to pay Tk 50,000 now as AIT. The amount was Tk 30,000 before.

"This may be a key reason for the sharp fall in the number of vehicles taking fitness clearance," he told this correspondent, seeking anonymity.

Another BRTA official, preferring not to be named, said there are some types of vehicles, like human hauliers and trucks, whose owners have to bribe law enforcers and transport sector influentials even if they have fitness clearance. This discourages them to take any clearance test.

He said cars, SUVs and microbuses had to take fitness clearances annually.

Since January 2020, they have to take the clearance once in two years. The number of vehicles seeking the clearances has fallen due to this too.

In this situation, the number of vehicles without fitness clearance is gradually increasing, shows BRTA data.

Around 5.42 lakh registered vehicles, which are eligible for fitness test, did not renew their documents till October 15. The number was 5.08 lakh till January this year and 4.79 lakh till July 2019.

However, the actual number of registered but unfit vehicles may not be that high because many of 5.42 vehicles may not be in operation anymore, another BRTA official said.