Apart from owing a posh car, flaunting fancy numbers on it is becoming a craze day by day. Cashing in on the penchant of the vehicle owners, Transport Department is eyeing on netting a revenue of Rs, 2.5 crore this fiscal from the city only, by auctioning the registration numbers with the sought-after digits.
After buying a luxury car, the owners are ready to spend a fortune for securing fancy registration numbers. Recently, an Audi sedan owner, who bought the vehicle for Rs. 52 lakh, bid another Rs. 5.01 lakh for obtaining the registration number (AP16CZ) 9999.
The department had earned Rs.1.51 crore through auctioning of fancy registration numbers in 2013 which went up to Rs.1.98 crore in the next fiscal. The department has already generated Rs.1.22 crore in this year and the officials are hopeful of crossing the Rs. 2.5-crore mark by the end of the financial year.
Of late, several vehicle owners are willing to bid for fancy registration number, leaving no stone unturned to secure the desired registration numbers. According to the officials, a car owner recently bid Rs. 2.31 lakh for the number (AP16 CZ) 3456 and while another spent Rs. 2.04 lakh to secure the number (AP16 DA) 4444. Similarly, the number (AP 16 DA) 5678 fetched the department Rs.1.25 lakh.
Source of revenue
The craze for the fancy numbers has become good source of revenue for the department in the city, the officials say. They attribute the trend to the increase in registration of non-transport vehicles.
The department had registered 54,712 such vehicles in 2014-15 when compared to the 47,864 registered in the previous financial year, marking a 9.66 per cent rise. Similarly, two-wheeler registrations had gone up from 37,5224 last year to 41,1028 this year so far.
