PANAJI: State’s traffic police booked as many as 4839 cases against the vehicle owners, who had fitted fancy number plates to their vehicles, and collected Rs 4,83,900 by way of fines from them for violating Central Motor Vehicle rule 51, uptill July 31, informed the Superintendent of Police, traffic, Mr Arvind Gawas.

Speaking to ‘The Navhind Times’, Mr Gawas stated that some people fix their vehicles with number plates written in Devnagari script; sometimes number plates are with very small letters and invisible numbers, and sometimes there remains a variety of designs.

"In case of number having just one digit, writing the digit big is not enough; it is against the rule. It should be written properly in four digit format — say 9 should be written 0009 and not just 9," he pointed out

"I have instructed my staff to be very strict with the people, who write letters very big and digits very small as it becomes very difficult to note down for the numbers for the members of public in case any accident takes place,’’ informed the SP.

"Mostly criminals or anti-social elements or sometimes youth do jugglery with the number plates, may be to escape from the eyes of the law enforcers; slight variations can be understood and actually we try to ignore them,’’ he added.

"Proper implementation of High Security Registration Plates would take care of everything that has made inroads into the number plates of 2-wheelers, three wheelers and 4-wheelers besides others,’’ Mr Gawas felt.

Sometimes, we undertake a special drive to stop such a practice. Within just seven months, we booked 4839 cases and challaned them Rs 100 each. Most people do not know that it is against the Motor Vehicle Rule and carry on with the practice after they buy new attractive and expensive motorcycles, he added.

"A Section of the M V Act clearly indicates that the number plates should be clear and legible and it should be solid unit made of 1.0 mm aluminium conforming to
set standard.’’

The M V Act further stipulates that the number plate should be able to withstand damage and reflective sheet has to be guaranteed for imperishable nature for minimum five years.

"The fast colouring of legend and border to be done by hot stamping and the plate should bear the letter ‘IND’ in blue colour on the extreme left of the plate."

"Each plate shall be protected against counterfeiting by applying chromium-based hologram, applied by hot stamping. Stickers and adhesive labels are not permitted. The plate shall bear a permanent consecutive identification number of minimum seven digits, to be laser branded into the reflective sheeting and hot stamping film shall bear a verification inscription."

He informed that as per the Rule 51 of Central MV Act all motor vehicles, that include all motorcycles, three wheelers, and other motor vehicles should have prescribed format which is found in HSRP.