Vehicle theft: ‘Non-detachable plates will improve safety’

Excise and Taxation Department to issue number plates in 14 weeks.

LAHORE:

The Excise and Taxation Department will soon introduce non-detachable number plates for cars and motorcycles, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The government had earlier been considering a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip to be incorporated in the number plate.

Headquarters Director Irfan Khalid said, “No matter how many security features are added to a number plate those become irrelevant once it is taken off the vehicle.” He said it was very important to ensure that a number plate was installed in such a way that it could never be removed. He said an adhesive would be applied to the back of the bolt that would be drilled into the bumper. It would not be possible to remove the bolt thereafter.

Khalid said if a vehicle with such a number plate was stolen, the thieves would have to remove the entire bumper. He hoped that this would improve police’s chances of finding car thieves and reducing street crime. He said the department was working on a plan to ensure that all new vehicles get such number plates. Eventually owners of old vehicles too would be approached.

On Wednesday, INBOX was given the contract to supply number plates. The company will start supplying the number plates in 14 weeks. It will set up a unit to emboss print the plates at the Excise Office in Shadman, Khalid said.

An E&T official said that the company will supply 500,000 number plates per month for three years. 250,000 plates will be issued every month till the back log is cleared.  The Excise and Taxation Department had stopped giving number plates for motorcycles in February 2012 and for cars in March 2013. More than five hundred thousand number plates are to be supplied in Lahore alone. The department will be supplying 150,000 pairs of number plates from June.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 2^nd, 2014.