How to register your vehicle, rather how to get a fancy number ??

The other day saw a ‘Porsche’ car on busy Mount road ..  !  - worth crore or more !!

Porsche India is a division of Volkswagen Group Sales India Private Limited, with its headquarters in Mumbai. They are the  sole importers for Porsche’s range of sport luxury cars – including the iconic 911, Boxster, Cayman, Macan, Cayenne and Panamera.  Dr.-Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche AG  is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans. Porsche AG is headquartered in Stuttgart.

Away in the melee, we do own vehicles right from TVS 50 mopeds, scooters, motor cycles, small cars and .. .. .. one requires valid  Driving License to drive them too…. honestly, how many of us underwent the process, passed the test and obtained License in the proper manner ?  …. There are always crowds in front of RTOs ….. in  the interesting film ‘Indian’ ~ there was dual roles – the real hero was that of Senapathi, a meticulous old man fighting to weed out corruption ~ the other was Chandra Bose alias Chandru, a small-time broker outside the RTO who gets people the license for bribes. Senthil was Panee[r]Selvam – the RTO Officer….

The Motor Vehicles Act provides for the registration of all motor vehicles in the country. Each motor vehicle is assigned with a unique Registration Number.  Once the vehicle is registered, a document called ‘RC’  is issued to the owner of the vehicle.   Do you remember the REgn Nos. of all the vehicles you owned ? ~ and can you tell those that your close relatives owned / used ?  - in my school days, used to see vehicles with MSV; TMP; TMV; TMY, TMX, TMZ etc., [one of the vehicles owned by my uncle was :  Lamby TMV 6145]

The registration also called licence plate [commonly Number plate] bears the Registration Number [strangely, Honda Activa dealers charge you for Vehicular Number plate as accessory !!!] ~  licence plates are placed in the front and back of the vehicle. By law, all plates are required to be in modern Hindu-Arabic numerals with Latin letters.  Plates for private car and two-wheeler owners have black lettering on a white background. Commercial vehicles such as taxis and trucks have a yellow background and black text.  Only the President of India and State Governors  can travel in official cars without licence plates; they would have the Emblem of India in gold embossed on a red plate.

The current format of the registration index consists of 3 parts, They are

•        The first two letters indicate the state to which the vehicle is registered.

•        The next two digit numbers are the sequential number of a district. Due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, the numbers were given to the RTO offices of registration as well.

•        The third part is a 4 digit number unique to each plate. A letter(s) is prefixed when the 4 digit number runs out and then two letters and so on.

                                 Numbering of vehicle in India is done at Regional/Sub Regional Transport Offices located in various states. Each vehicle number has prescribed format.  For example – if it is TN-06 .. ….  – the last 4 digits are unique to the  vehicle – TN06 is Chennai South-East RTO ; so all motorized vehicles irrespective of whether they are 2 wheeler; 3wheeler or 4 wheeled ones would have the same TN06 …. But there will never be two vehicles with the same 4 digits + same RTO code.   Again though the last four digit numbers are unique – you may not get the number of your choice – as numbers up to 100 are generally registered for Govt – again not necessarily always.  Then there are special numbers. 

In Tamil Nadu, the letter G is reserved for Government (both the Union Government of India and State Governments) vehicles and the letter N is reserved for Government Transport Buses. For e.g. TN 69 G 3333 could be a government vehicle registered in Thoothukudi District, whereas a TN 72 N 2222 could be a government Bus registered in Tirunelveli District. In Andhra Pradesh, the letter Z is reserved for the State Road Transport (APSRTC) buses; the letter P (AP 9P — Khairatabad RTO) is reserved for the state police vehicles.

There are some – who fancy the numbers and there are some who want to avoid numbers – commonly many people want to avoid numbers totaling ‘8’ – some would say that numbers ascending would be good …. !! it is sentiment ~ and may not have any rationale.  In Tamil Nadu, as also in most other RTOs, the Fancy numbers are allotted in advance in payment of prescribed fees. 

Here is a strange and interesting [though not the first or only of its kind !] read in Times of India, Chennai edition of date. 

The owner of a ₹1 crore-worth Porsche 718 Boxster spending an additional ₹31/- lakh to get a fancy vehicle registration number is nothing unusual. K S Balagopal, a resident of Kowdiar, Thiruvananthapuram, won the registration number ‘KL-01-CK-1’, for his brand new Miami Blue colour sports car by paying ₹30 lakh at the auction held at the regional transport office (RTO), Thiruvananthapuram, on Monday. This was in addition to the ₹1 lakh he had paid as reservation fees for the fancy number. 

Proprietor of Devi Pharma, a leading pharmaceuticals distribution company, Balagopal, who owns a fleet of luxury cars, has set a new record in auction of fancy vehicle registration numbers in the state by engaging in a fiery bid against NRI businessman Shine Yousef. Yousef quit after quoting ₹25,00,500 as Balagopal hiked the next call to ₹30 lakh. The previous record was also in the name of Balagopal, who won the number KL-01-CB-1 at ₹19 lakh for his Land Cruiser in 2017.   Another bidder R K Anand Ganesh, also an NRI, was in the race in the initial phase but dropped out after quoting ₹10,50,000.

                     “The new series in vehicle registration number was released when I bought the sports car. So, I decided to reserve the first number for my car. Sensing that other bidders will not withdraw, I quoted a higher amount to win it at any cost. Only when the officials at RTO informed me, I came to know that it was a record,” said Balagopal.

Not a news for those who plan to fill their two wheeler  tank,  when petrol price drops down by a rupee !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

5^th Feb 2019.