Cabinet approval was received to grant a concessionary period of four months from October 2016 to January 2017 to register motorcycles that had not yet been registered or licensed by their owners to date, the Motor Traffic Department said today.

Addressing the media today Commissioner of the Department of Motor Traffic A.H.K. Jagath Chandrasiri said the four months concessionary period would begin on October 3 and be valid till January 3 to facilitate the owners of motorcycles who had still not registered their vehicles with at the Department of Motor Traffic.

“Most of the motorcycles had been imported directly without any documentation, and those motorcycles are being used without registering them with in the Department of Motor Traffic,” Mr. Chandrasiri said.

Meanwhile, the concessionary period of the three months that had been published from September 1 to December 31 this year is now operational to facilitate the vehicle uses who still had not handed in their vehicle ownership papers.

Taking into consideration the heavy fines that would have to be paid by vehicle owners who had open papers the government was trying to make it affordable for vehicle owners to transfer ownership by only paying double the sum charged for transferring ownership plus the revenue fees, Mr. Chandrasiri said.

The reason for this course of action has been the difficulties faced by law enforcement authorities as vehicles with open papers were being used by the new owners for long periods under the old owners’ names which tended to become a problem when transferring the ownership to dependents if the event the owner of the vehicle dies. (Chaturanga Pradeep)

Video by RM