Rs. 5 lakh for fancy car number

Want a fancy registration number for your car? Get ready to pay through your nose.

Want a fancy registration number for your car? Get ready to pay through your nose.

HT Image

The Delhi cabinet on Monday cleared a proposal to auction fancy numbers through an open bidding system that will take place every fortnight.

The government has categorised the fancy numbers into four groups and fixed the base price accordingly.

Bidding for the number 0001 will start from Rs. 5 lakh, for numbers 0002 to 0009 from Rs. 3 lakh, numbers 0010 to 0098 and 0786 from Rs. 2 lakh, and three-digit and sequential numbers from Rs. 1 lakh.

Any other number not mentioned in the four categories will cost Rs. 20,000.

While single digit numbers were not available for commoners till now, the transport department had earlier allotted other registration numbers to anybody on request.

The transport department of Chandigarh had been auctioning numbers for the past few years while there is fixed price for preferred numbers in states such as Haryana, Punjab and Goa.

"The practice of allotting numbers has been stopped. We will notify the new provision in the next couple of days. All out-of-turn allotment of numbers will now be done through bidding,” Delhi transport minister Arvinder Singh said.

The transport department had already been charging Rs. 2000 to Rs. 5000 for fancy numbers from two wheelers.

Official vehicles of bureaucrats, politicians and judges will however continue to get fancy numbers free of cost.

Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit said putting a price to fancy numbers will eliminate the possibility of corruption in the allotment of numbers.

"Our aim is not to get more revenue. The money collected will go to the chief minister’s relief fund and will be used for welfare schemes,” Dikshit said.