Saar: The news comes from our union minister, Nitin Gadkari, and is aimed to simplify the vehicle registration process

New cars will soon come with factory-fitted number plates and their cost will be included in the price of the four-wheeler. This announcement came from the Road Transport, Highways, Shipping, Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation minister, Nitin Gadkari, who, in his own words said, “We have taken an important decision. Now, manufacturers will fit the plates and embossing will be done later through a machine.“

The idea is not just to help customers get the legal number plates which have the latest technology embedded, but also to inject a much-needed uniformity across states as every state used to buy these plates earlier from different agencies. The prices of those number plates procured by states ranged between Rs 800 and Rs 40,000, Gadkari added. This, as well all know, is a different procedure than what pertains currently – the license plate (commonly known as number plate) is issued by the district-level RTOs (regional transport office) of the respective state.

Gadkari further pointed out that as far as vehicles were concerned, there would be no compromise in terms of security and such norms will be the same for all models – be it economy, SUV or luxury. Very recently, the government has added a safety clause for all new cars which will be produced from July 1, 2019. The norm states that every car must have a driver-side airbag, seat-belt reminder, speeding alert for driving over 80kmph and rear parking sensors as part of its standard kit.

We think that this is surely a sane move. Above everything else, we won’t have to worry about the legality of the number plate. It seems then all we need to do is get the vehicle registration number, choose one if you are feeling really rich and wouldn’t mind paying thousands or even lakhs of rupees, and understand how the embossing process will go through. Will those machines be available at the RTO offices or will the office take the number plates with them, send the lot to the dedicated workshop and then return them to us, is something that remains in the grey area.