Bengaluru: In a first ever open bidding for fancy vehicle numbers, the transport department earned Rs 10,11,000 at Jnanabharathi RTO. Now, the transport department is looking forward to conduct its next auction of 50 fancy numbers on Wednesday at Indiranagar RTO, and the base price has been fixed at Rs 75,000.
On the auction that took place last week, Transport Commissioner Ramegowda said, “The response has been good considering we are doing open bidding for the first time. We can conduct these auctions only when certain series of numbers becomes available to us.”
Those who want to bid have to make a demand draft of Rs 75,000 to be eligible to participate in the auction. The bidding amount is apart from the base price of Rs 75,000. There are 50 numbers available for biding at Indiranagar RTO. They are 1, 123, 1234, 234, 10, 11, 111, 1111, 100, 1000, 22, 222, 2222, 2727, 33, 36, 333, 3636, 45, 444, 4444, 4545, 5, 55, 555, 5454, 5555, 63, 666, 6055, 6363, 7, 77, 777, 786, 7777, 8, 88, 888, 8055, 8888, 9, 90, 99, 909, 9000, 9090 and 9999.
Air pollution
The transport department has sent a proposal to the state government to increase the subsidy for conversion of two-stroke autos from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000. Last month, the transport department checked 1,05,050 vehicles and booked cases against 2,272 for air pollution.
Mr Vaman Acharya, Chairman, KSPCB, said, “Two-stroke engines in two-wheelers, autorickshaws and goods autorickshaws are a major concern. They can be converted to electricity. I feel the government should give some subsidy to them and encourage conversion. Besides, diesel vehicles contribute to 40 percent of the pollution, we will try removing them slowly.”
Mr Acharya said, “The main reason behind rising pollution is nothing but vehicular pollution. Today, there are hardly any industries in Bengaluru and the pollution contributed by them is just 14 percent. The other factors following vehicular pollution are dust due to bad roads, huge generators used by the IT companies and construction works.”
