The transport department has indicated that it may levy a green cess on vehicles seeking renewal after 15 years on the road.

State transport secretary C S Sangitrao gave this suggestion during a meeting with chief minister Ashok Chavan at the Mantralaya on Tuesday. "I have asked the transport commissioner to prepare a draft on this issue. It would be premature to comment on it at this stage as the draft has to be first submitted to the government for approval,'' Sangitrao said.

A senior official present at the meeting said the chief minister seemed ready to go with the proposal with a couple of changes. "It is a good idea but middle-class people having cars for years may not be upgrading the vehicle for some genuine reasons. It would not be fair to burden such people with an additional tax. Instead, Chavan suggested that the tax could be levied on 15-year-old cars whose original value was over Rs 5 lakh,'' the official added.

Even if the government goes ahead with this modification, many 15-year-old heavy vehicles-like trucks-and expensive cars will have to pay an additional tax while renewing the registration certificate.

Also present at the meeting was former Bogota mayor Enrique Penalosa. Penalosa is also a visiting scholar at New York University and conducting a research on a new urban development model with special focus on transportation and pollution.

The state government has also directed the transport department to strengthen the public transport system in Mumbai and other cities like Pune, Nagpur and Nashik. "Issues related to the Bus Rapid Transit System were discussed in the meeting,'' said state urban development principal secretary T C Benjamin.

The CM has also directed the department to segregate cities into three categories, depending on their car and two-wheeler population.