Now, pay upto Rs 6 lakh for your VIP car number in Maharashtra

The VIP car number craze seems to be increasing day by day and cashing in on this trend, the state of Maharashtra has hiked fees for VIP or preferred choice of numbers for new car registrations. 

In an official notification, the state transport department for Maharashtra has announced that new vehicle owners seeking the highly sought after 0001 number plate for their four wheeler will have to pay Rs 6 lakh, especially in high demand cities like, Mumbai Suburban, Thane, Raigad, Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Kolhapur and Nashik Districts. Customers going for the same number plate in other areas in the state of Maharashtra will have to shell out Rs 5 lakh from Rs 4 lakh earlier.

For two wheelers, buyers will have to shell out Rs 1 lakh instead of Rs 50,000 earlier.

What’s more, the fees for purchasing a 0001 number from a new series have been made even more expensive.  Until now, if an existing series did not have the number 0001 available for purchase, a new series would be opened from which the number 0001 would be allotted to the vehicle.   

With the new set of rules, a new series will be opened only after clearances from the Transport Commissioner and further on, on the recommendation of the registration authority.  Once this is done, the applicant will have to may three times the fees specified.  This means new car buyers will have to pay as high as Rs 15 lakh to a whopping Rs 18 lakh for the 0001 plate from a new series.  This figure used to be around Rs 12 lakh for most cases earlier.

The auction process for allotment of VIP or choice numbers will continue like before when the series is opened.  Buyers can purchase their desired number after the auction is over, on first come first serve basis.

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