Slowdown hits auto sector, not craze for fancy numbers

Hyderabad: Customers for cars and two-wheelers in Telangana may have dwindled dramatically over the years, but strange as it seems, the money spent on ensuring the fanciest number plate on these vehicles remains almost the same. In fact, a glance at the data indicates that there has been a marginal rise in the trend.

1. Even as automobile industry slowing down, the passion for fancy numbers remains intact
2. There has been a marginal rise of Rs 30 lakh spent on bagging the fanciest number plates

During April to September 2018, the Road Transport Authority (RTA) fetched a whopping sum of Rs 24.16 crore just from the fancy number business. During the same quarter in 2019, the amount RTA fetched increased to Rs 24.46 crore. Even as the automobile industry is seeing an economic slowdown, the passion for fancy numbers has led to a rise in their earnings by over Rs 30 lakh.

However, the state's leading RTO at Khairatabad has witnessed a slowdown in terms of registration, as well as for fancy numbers. The collection at the RTO has dipped from which was around Rs 3.97 crore in 2018 to Rs 3.41 crore in 2019

Speaking to the Hans India here C Ramesh, Joint Transport Commissioner Khairatabad said, "This year Khairatabad has seen quite a muted response for fancy numbers compared to previous years. The economic slowdown in the automobile industry can be one of the reasons for it. The highest bid so far for a fancy number has been up to 10 lakh but this year's even the numbers which were sold for three-four lakhs are sold for one-lakh."

NUMBER GAME

1. A string of fancy numbers will be put up for auction by RTA after the interested parties pay a stipulated amount ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,00,000
2. As per RTA, there are around 67 such numbers for which the RTA charges this amount
3. Followed by the registration, the parties in question can bid for the number, by submitting a DD of the bid amount and the highest bidder gets the number