Post News Network
Bhubaneswar: In a bid to bring transparency into allotment procedure for fancy vehicle registration numbers, the state government will launch online auctioning from January 7.
According to senior transport department officials, the state government has issued a notification to this effect recently and online auctioning would come into force January 7.
“As per the amended Orissa Motor Vehicle Rules 1993, the fancy registration numbers and series numbers will be allotted through online auction. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is developing a website and by December 25, it will roll out the software tentatively,” the officials said.
The decision would not only bring transparency in the allotment of fancy numbers, but also bring in more revenue to the state government, the official added.
The fancy registration numbers like 0001, 1111 and 2222 would go for online auction.
The transport commissioner will reserve the fancy registration numbers and notify the numbers in local papers for auction.
However, the transport commissioner has the authority to reserve any registration number for government-owned vehicles. Such vehicles can obtain fancy numbers without paying any additional fee, the sources said.
The transportation department has identified 42 numbers between 1 and 9999 categorised as ‘fancy numbers’. There has always been demand for single-digit numbers between 1 and 9 and No. 786 which is favoured by some. Double digit numbers such as 11, 22, 33 till 99 and three-digit numbers such as 111 to 999 have special fascination by road users.
As per the new provision, the minimum bidding price for a two-wheeler fancy number will be Rs 10,000 and for a four-wheeler Rs 20,000.
The minimum bidding price for very special numbers like 1, 9 would be `1 lakh while the price for other single-digit numbers, double-digit numbers and series numbers would be `60,000. Similarly, the minimum bidding price for other fancy numbers would be `40,000, the sources added.
