The Sindh Assembly has approved an amendment to the Provincial Motor Vehicles Ordinance, 1965, restoring a six-month grace period for showroom-held vehicles before registration penalties apply, reversing a stricter one-month deadline imposed on dealers last year.
Provincial Law Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar moved the bill in the assembly.
Provincial Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla, explaining the amendment, said dealers had been penalised whenever a vehicle remained unregistered for more than a month after import or manufacture, regardless of whether it had been sold.
Under the revised law, vehicles kept at showrooms will not attract fines for up to six months from the date of invoice or Goods Declaration. A penalty will only apply once the vehicle leaves the showroom and is driven on the road, ending the earlier requirement that dealers register unsold stock within 30 days.
The amendment addresses a rule introduced through the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2024, which had cut the registration window from six months to one month for all vehicles, including cars, motorbikes and rickshaws.
Dealer associations had rejected that change at the time, arguing it was impractical and demanding a three-month delay to clear existing stock, saying compliance within 30 days was unworkable for large inventories.
The Sindh Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department has separately been revising vehicle-related fees and procedures in recent months, including updated registration and transfer charges for commercial vehicles under the Sindh Finance Act, 2025, and the launch of new CNIC-based unified vehicle registration series in February 2026.
The assembly has also previously acted on related motor vehicle matters, including a tax amendment bill addressing the misclassification of commercial vehicles as private ones to curb revenue losses, and, in December 2025, rejecting a Jamaat-e-Islami resolution seeking higher e-challan fines.
