Permits, Tolls & State Tax

What an All India Tourist Permit is, and why it matters to you

Our outstation vehicles operate on the appropriate permit for the work: an All India Tourist Permit under the All India Tourist Vehicles (Permit) Rules, 2023 for interstate outstation work, or the relevant state or contract-carriage permit. Where an All India Tourist Permit applies, the composite fee is paid up front into a central account, which means the vehicle does not have to stop and pay a border tax at every state boundary. In practice that means fewer stops, no haggling at check-posts, and a legally compliant vehicle in every state you travel through.

Before the composite-fee scheme, a tourist vehicle crossing a state line had two choices, and neither was good for the passenger sitting in the back. It could hold a separate permit for every state it might ever enter, which is expensive to keep current and does nothing for the state it has not thought to add. Or it could run without one and stop at each border to negotiate a tax in cash before the officer on duty would wave it through, with the trip sitting at the barrier for however long that took. An All India Tourist Permit replaces both with one instrument, valid across the country, paid for once as a composite fee rather than state by state at the point of crossing.

For you, travelling in the car, that is the whole of why it matters. A trip from Delhi out to Chandigarh, Jaipur, Dehradun, Haridwar or the hills beyond crosses at least one state line, and on a vehicle running the appropriate permit for that work, the crossing itself is nothing: no stop, no queue at a barrier, no wait while the driver argues a figure with someone at a desk. A vehicle running on the wrong paperwork for an interstate trip does not have that certainty. It can be detained, fined, or turned back at the boundary, and any of those can cost you the rest of the day you had planned, which is the part an operator's paperwork failure actually costs its passenger rather than the operator.

The fleet you are quoted from is a mix of vehicles Om Travels owns outright and vehicles that come from operators we have an ongoing working arrangement with. Either way, this is not a marketplace you browse where independent owners list a car and bid for your trip: our own office prices the trip, confirms the vehicle and the driver, and settles the fare with you before anyone is assigned. Whichever vehicle takes your duty runs on the permit appropriate to that duty, arranged as part of that same working relationship rather than left to whoever happens to be available.

State entry tax and border tax

A state entry tax, sometimes called a border tax, is a levy a state charges under its own Motor Vehicles Taxation Act on a commercial vehicle registered elsewhere that enters and uses its roads. It is a genuine, real charge, and where your route actually crosses a state line, for a trip that runs from Delhi into Rajasthan or Himachal, for instance, it is a cost the trip carries. Because the fleet operates on the appropriate permit for that work, this is settled through the composite fee described above rather than negotiated in cash at the boundary, and where it applies to your specific trip, the amount is worked out in advance and shown as its own line on your written quotation before you travel. You are not meant to discover it for the first time at a check-post.

A state entry tax is not payable at all on a trip that starts and finishes inside one state, an airport run within Delhi-NCR, say, or a local hire that never leaves the city. The test you can actually apply is simple: did the charge appear as a named line on the quotation you confirmed before you left, or is someone asking for it for the first time on the road? A charge that was already on your paper is a real charge. One that was not, sprung on you at a barrier or by a driver mid-journey, is not something this business bills you for, whatever it is called at the time, and it should be treated exactly like any other unlisted demand for cash: ask for a receipt, and if none is produced, do not pay it.

Toll

Toll is charged by the highway authority for the use of a specific stretch of road, and our vehicles carry FASTag, so it is deducted electronically at the plaza as the vehicle passes through the dedicated lane. Nobody stops to hand over cash and nobody negotiates a figure at the barrier. "At actuals" means exactly that: the amount billed to you is the amount the plaza actually deducted for your vehicle on your trip, not a round figure estimated for the route and not a margin added on top for our convenience.

The way this is evidenced is the FASTag statement, an itemised electronic record of every toll deduction against that vehicle, matched against the plazas your route actually passes and the dates you travelled. Where a stretch genuinely has no FASTag lane, which is rare on the roads this business runs, the driver's plaza receipt does the same job. Either way, the toll line on your bill is something we can show you was actually charged, not something you are asked to take on trust.

Parking

Parking is charged only where the vehicle genuinely has to pay to stand and wait for you, an airport multi-level car park, a paid lot at a wedding venue, a hotel that charges for its porte cochere. Where free waiting is available, and it usually is, the driver uses it and nothing is charged for parking at all. Where it is not, the amount billed is at actuals, meaning exactly what the ticket or the gate charged, evidenced by the parking receipt kept for that stop.

This is a small charge on most trips and it is treated with the same discipline as every other one: it is a named line with a receipt behind it, never a round figure folded into something else. If a parking charge appears on your bill with nothing to show for it, that is not how this business bills for parking, and it is worth asking about before you pay.

Hill-station green tax and entry fees

A hill-station green tax or entry fee is a different charge from the state entry tax described above. Where a state entry tax is about crossing a state boundary, a green tax or entry fee is charged by the local state, forest or development authority at the gate of a specific destination, an eco-sensitive zone or a hill town that funds its own roads and upkeep through a per-vehicle charge collected as you enter. It is genuinely route-dependent: a trip that stays on the plains never sees one, and a trip to a hill destination that levies one will.

This is not something the all-India permit's composite fee covers, because it is not a transit tax on crossing a state line, it is a local entry charge at one specific destination. Where your itinerary genuinely calls for it, it is named on your quotation in advance if the destination and the applicable fee are known before you travel, or billed at actuals with the gate receipt where the exact figure could only be known on the day. Either way, the same rule applies as everywhere else on this page: a real charge comes with a receipt.

Fitness, PUC and insurance

Three certificates stand behind every vehicle on the road, and each one attests to something specific rather than being a formality nobody checks.

Certificate of Fitness

Issued under section 56 of the Motor Vehicles Act after the vehicle is inspected and found roadworthy to carry passengers for hire: its brakes, steering, tyres, body and the safety equipment it is required to carry, checked and passed. It is renewed as required by law over the life of a commercial vehicle, not issued once and forgotten.

Pollution Under Control certificate

Attests that the vehicle's exhaust emissions were tested and found within the permitted limit at the time of testing. It is renewed periodically and carried in the vehicle, or available in its DigiLocker equivalent, which is legally valid in place of the paper original.

Insurance, including passenger cover

A comprehensive policy rather than a bare third-party-only one. Third-party cover protects somebody harmed outside the vehicle; passenger cover is the part that specifically protects you and your fellow passengers if something happens to the vehicle itself while you are in it, which is the half that matters most to the person actually sitting in the car.

None of this is decoration on the paperwork. A fitness certificate is a statement that somebody with the authority to check has looked at this specific vehicle and found it fit to carry you; a valid PUC is a statement about what it is putting into the air on your route; and passenger cover on the policy is the difference between an insurer paying only for the other party in an accident and an insurer standing behind you as well.

Driver documents

A driver carrying paying passengers holds documents beyond an ordinary private driving licence, and both of them exist for reasons worth knowing rather than taking on faith.

• A commercial driving licence, endorsed for the class of vehicle he is actually driving. An ordinary private-car licence does not by itself authorise driving a transport vehicle, a vehicle used to carry passengers or goods for hire, and a licence good for a sedan does not by itself authorise driving a seventeen-seat tempo traveller: the endorsement has to match the vehicle.
• Police verification of his character and antecedents, completed before he is put on duty. It is a standard check carried out through the local police before someone is trusted to drive paying passengers, and it is done ahead of time rather than assumed.

What you should check, and how to report a non-compliant vehicle

You do not need to be an inspector to check any of this. If anything about a vehicle or a charge feels off, you may ask the driver to see the permit, the registration certificate, the insurance, the fitness certificate and the PUC, or their DigiLocker equivalents, which are just as valid as the paper originals. And every charge beyond the base fare, toll, parking, state entry tax, a hill entry fee, should already be a named line on the written quotation you confirmed before you travelled, or evidenced with a receipt at the time it was actually paid. The one thing you should never do is hand over cash for something unnamed and un-receipted simply because a driver on the road has asked for it.

Any state tax, toll, parking charge or entry fee billed to you will be supported by a receipt. If a driver asks you for money without a receipt, do not pay it; call us immediately on +91 99966 69190.

If you believe a vehicle was not carrying what it should have been, or a driver made a charge up on the road, tell us. Our Grievance Officer and the full escalation ladder for exactly this kind of complaint are published in full at /grievance-redressal.