15,000 vehicles booked for fancy number plates in Pune

Notwithstanding a special drive by traffic police, fancy registration number plates still remain the craze among Pune motorists. Depicting the number 4141 to look like ‘Nana’ in Marathi, 2121 to look like Dada in Marathi and 4192 to look like Pawar in Marathi still remains in fashion. The reason, the police are not taking any action against the people who prepare the fancy number plates.

The traffic police in Pune, which has launched a drive against fancy number plates, has taken action against 14,948 vehicles in the last five months.Yet, motorists continue to use fancy number plates.

Surprisingly, the police have not taken action against the people making the fancy number plates. “The business of making registration number plates is highly decentralised. Thousands of number plate makers operate from small kiosks all over the city. Even if we catch a fancy number plate, there is no way to track down the person who made it. Therefore, we just can’t take action against number plate makers,” said inspector (administration) Ramchandra Dhage from Pune police traffic branch.

As per the rule, the number plates must be in English and the letters and the numbers should be legible and clearly decipherable.

Dhage blames the casual approach of motorists towards the provisions of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 regarding registration number plates for the rise in number of fancy number plates.
He said, “We held a week-long special drive against fancy number plates in the first week of June and took action against 266 vehicles for using fancy number plates. Now we have decided to continue the drive round the year.”

“The number of cases of fancy number plates has shot up this year compared to the last year. In the first five months of 2012, we had taken action against 8,323 vehicles for using fancy number plates. The number crossed 14,948 in corresponding period of this year,” Dhage added.

This rise comes notwithstanding the traffic police launching its Facebook page to spread public awareness some three-and-half years ago.