Hyderabad: For some it’s a lucky charm, for some it’s a sentiment, for some it’s like ancestral property, to be carried forward, but for the transport department, its revenue. Thanks to the craze for customised vehicle number plates, the traffic department has earned a whopping Rs 35,55,827 on a single day earlier this week! There is so much competition for the fancy numbers, that they are auctioned. The last time such an auction was held, in July, it fetched around Rs 23,38,900.
Malkajgiri Member of Parliament Ch Malla Reddy has around 15 vehicles for family and the institutions he owns, and they all have the same last four digits 0777. It’s a matter of sentiment, apparently. Ch Badradri, the MP’s younger son, says, “We have been using the same number series for more than 18 years, and we get it from the Ranga Reddy division, so we get it at a lower price.”
Caretaker Chief Minister, K. Chandrashekar Rao’s lucky vehicle number is TS 09 K 6666. Most vehicles in his convoy have this common number plate. Earlier, the craze was limited to only the ‘9’ series, now the craze is for the ‘6’ series as well, since KCR has become Chief Minister. One can choose from 24 number plates with the same last four digits, as the alphabet series changes once every 24 times.
For Junior NTR, the actor, it’s always the ‘9’ series, right from the time of his grandfather, the late N.T. Rama Rao, founder of the Telugu Desam. For Nandamuri Balakrishna, actor-politician, it’s ‘1’ that matters.
P. Durga Prasad, Road Transport Officer, Khairatabad, says there is a lot of demand for customised number plates in this zone. “If more than one person wants the same number we go for auction. It is one of our major sources of profit.”
He says more than 200 vehicles are registered daily due to the festive season. The majority of registrations are in Khairatabad, as this central zone houses many ministers, celebrities. In the last three months, around 20,000 vehicles have been registered in this zone.
