In cases of fraudulent Regional Transport Office (RTO) website being used to steal revenue from the Government of Uttarakhand, district police arrested three accused, while one is still at large. The case came to light when Assistant Regional Transport Officer (ARTO) Arvind Pandey during checking found that many vehicles that are operating in district had tax receipts that were generated through non-governmental websites.

The arrested accused have been identified as Pawan Kumar (32), Shahwez (23) and Rahul (21). The absconding accused is Tinku, who according to Pawan is the mastermind behind the entire plan.Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Nivedita Kukreti informed the media, “During routine checking by RTO it was found that few tax receipts were generated in a fraudulent manner. When the related website was checked we found that it is illegal. We have arrested three accused in the case while one is absconding. Through the site they were issuing fake receipts to taxi and bus owners and kept the money to themselves.”When asked the steps that being taken by the police for the prevention of such cases she said, “We are planning to send a letter across to all the transporters operating here to make sure that they only submit taxes through government websites which are hosted on gov.in domain.

Also, the compliance messages you get should be from correct medium. For example the official messages from VAHAN have only two A in the spelling, whereas if the website is fake it will be VAAHAN or VAHAAN.”

When asked about the total loss of government revenue because of them Kukreti said, “It is difficult to tell the exact figure. Most of the transactions were done in cash. We froze their bank accounts, but there was little amount there.”ARTO Pandey said, “About 500 taxis and 250 buses cross inter-state borders daily especially during Char Dham season.For the prevention of such fraudulent activities we are going to raise awareness among taxi owners and other transporters.’’