After Telangana formation, motorists will need new number plates.
Hyderabad: Motorists who get High Security Number Plates (HSNP) fitted on their new vehicles might have to pay double and get a new set of plates once the state is bifurcated. Registration process for HSNP began in Hyderabad and RR districts on Wednesday.
While HSNPs in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy will be fitted according to the AP registration code for now, after division, the same will be changed to TG or any code the new government decides upon and vehicle owners will have to follow suit.
They will then have to pay for the HSNP again. Senior transport department officials said that the number embossed on the HSNP would be the same as the registration certificate of the vehicle.
However, in case of bifurcation, the registration number would change in Telangana, as it did in Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. The state transport code will change along with the Road Transport Office codes, and this will obviously have to be reflected on the vehicle’s number plate.
The government has fixed the cost of fitting HSNP on four wheelers at '619. New vehicle owners, getting the HSNP fixed before bifurcation, may have to pay the same amount and get it done again. The fee for two wheelers is '249.
Interestingly, the government doesn’t seem to have given this a thought as even senior officials denied any knowledge about the issue.
The special chief secretary of transport department, D. Lakshmi Parthasarathy, said she had no knowledge regarding the process in the event of bifurcation. “I am not sure about the change of registration numbers due to bifurcation. You must ask the transport minister,” she said.
Top government officials also refused to talk on the subject saying that it was up to the government to take a stand.
A senior transport official said, “It is for the government to decide and take a stand on this. The project can’t wait for the bifurcation of the state.”
Transport minister Botsa Satyanarayana said that the government would take a decision on the issue at the appropriate time. “For now it has to go forward. But when the time comes and if there is an issue, we will decide on what has to be done then.”
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, TRS MLA, T. Harish Rao, demanded that the project be deferred in view of the impending bifurcation of the state.
“I even met the transport minister and explained to him about people having to pay twice for fixing the new registration plates. As such the project implementation should be stopped until bifurcation which is likely to be finished in a month’s time,” he said.
( Source : dc )
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