02 February,2010 09:25 AM IST | | Madhusudan Maney
Transport ministry's decision may increase corruption, fear officials Transport department officials feel a person who buys a car for, say, Rs 3 lakh may not be interested in spending almost a third of that amount on getting a fancy number. They fear that the hike in charges will bring down the number of takers for fancy numbers, and unscrupulous officials will allot such numbers for a much-lower, unofficial consideration
Transport department officials feel that Transport Minister R Ashok's decision to increase the fee for fancy numbers will lead to corruption by making it easier for officials to earn quick-money.
Transport department officials also said that the demand and pressure to implement this decision is more from the VVIP's and Government departments than the general public.
They feel that people who are crazy about fancy numbers will not be interested in paying such a huge amount.u00a0
Lowering of demand
According to the transport department authorities, once this decision comes into force, the takers of fancy numbers will drastically come down and this will also lead to corruption.
Sources at the department said, "Due to the steep hike in the rate for getting a fancy number, there will be no takers.
The officials can easily make money by giving it away to the vehicle owners for much cheaper rate as it will be available."
Revenue hike
According to Ashok, the government has earned Rs 10 crore by selling fancy numbers in the current year.
Government plans to gain additional revenue of Rs 30 crore by hiking the rates for fancy numbers.
One of the senior officials at the transport department said, "The proposal of increasing the fee for fancy numbers is only to discourage people.
In one way, this will help the department by lessening the burden of work and harassment by the VVIP's. At present, in all the Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) we had to open too many books of new series."
A person who buys a car by paying Rs 3 lakh will not be interested to spend almost one third of the price of a brand new car for getting a fancy number.
According to transport officials, at present in all the RTOs they have powers to allot numbers up to next thousand series.
If some one wants a number beyond thousand in the current running series or a different number from the future series they should get an approval from the Transport Commissioner.
'Follow AP system'
Another senior official at the transport department said, "Our neighbouring state Andhra Pradesh has adopted a very good system. Every day auction will take place for the fancy numbers and the highest bidder will get it.
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The system is transparent and there is no room for corruption. Even we should try to adopt such system."
Transport Commissioner Bhaskar Rao said, "Transport Minister R Ashok has brought relief for our department.
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Every day I used to get nearly 45 to 50 requests from VVIPs and film stars asking for a particular number.
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It is not possible to allot a particular number to many and to get the number they would mount pressure and some of the film stars would walk into my office."
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"The demand for the numbers like 1, 9, 1111, 5555, 9000, 9999 and 786 is huge.
Many of them would have bought foreign cars paying lakhs together and few more thousands wouldn't make much difference to them for getting a fancy number," said Rao.
He also said, "I don't think officials will misuse and make money as there will be very less people to buy now. Earlier there were chances when registers were maintained, but now every thing is done on computers."
