Kashmir
Reader: Srinagar: Wednesday, 16 September 2015.
Unlike in
other states, the government in Jammu and Kashmir doesn’t auction the vanity
vehicle registration numbers online.
As per the
information shared by the Motor Vehicles Department of the Regional Transport
Office, Kashmir in response to an RTI, the availability of vanity numbers, such
as 0110,0111, 0121, 0123, 0222, 033,0444, 0786, 1111, and 2222, is publicised
through print media alone.
Subsequently,
the numbers are allotted to highest bidders among the limited number of
participants with the help of software Vahan (version 1), which is also used
for allotment of the other numbers.
The vanity
numbers each registration series has a fixed number of them are available to
both commercial and non-commercial vehicles, the department said in the reply.
It is,
however, contrary to the practice followed in other states. Most states in
India regularly auction the vanity registration numbers online. People bid for
every number, and the highest bidder gets it eventually. The practice earns the
governments revenue, while the allotment of numbers happens transparently.
Usually, the
starting price or the base price for each vanity number is set quite high, and
it gets sold at an even higher price because of bidding.
In Delhi, for
instance, the base price for 0001 number is Rs 5 lakh, while the average prices
for most other vanity numbers ranges between Rs 1 lakh to 2 lakh.
In Jammu and
Kashmir, however, the average base price for a vanity number is just Rs 5,000,
and if it has no multiple claimants, the number is allotted without any special
effort, the department said.
Rarely,
however, many people ask for a particular vanity number, lending the department
an opportunity to sell it at a higher price through bidding.
“The number
0001 was allotted for Rs 1, 47,500 as revenue, while 0786 yielded Rs 1, 05,
000,” the department revealed.
The recently
concluded ‘X’ series, it said, generated Rs 12, 87, 000 while the current
series has already earned Rs 7, 35, 000, it said.
While the
method of allotting vanity numbers in Jammu and Kashmir doesn’t appear
transparent, giving space to rumours that only bureaucrats and ministers get
them, the department stated in the RTI that “no preferential treatment in
allotment of such numbers to ministers or bureaucrats is accorded”.
The department
has said that the software Vahan (version 1)”doesn’t allow online allotment or
auction” of the numbers.
.JPG)
.JPG)
