Govt order on green number plates for electric vehicles creates confusion in Mumbai

A road transport and highway ministry official said the confusion is because of a printing mistake in the notification and will be corrected.

With all electric vehicles (e-vehicles) set to have green number plates, as opposed to the white ones they currently sport, the ministry of road transport and highways has decided on the different colour scheme for the number plates of non-transport and commercial category e-vehicles in order to make them easy to be identified.

However, the May 15 notification about the green number plates for e-vehicles has caused confusion for Regional Transport Office (RTO) officers as the Hindi language version of the notification states that yellow letters on a green background will be mandatory for commercial category e-vehicles, while the English language version states that the new number plates should sport black letters on a green background.

“The notification specifies that the number plates of non-transport category electric vehicles should have white letters on the green background, but the instruction regarding commercial vehicles is confusing,” said an RTO official, requesting anonymity.

A ministry staffer said the confusion is because of a printing mistake in the notification and will be corrected.

“The colour scheme is proposed to be yellow on a green background for battery-operated transport vehicles and white on green background for battery-operated other than transport vehicles,”Abhay Damale, joint secretary, Morth told HT.

Some RTO officers are of the opinion that the colour scheme is inconspicuous. “You may not be able to note down the registration number in case of a hit-and-run case,” said a senior official.