Excise officials using unauthorised number plates

People fume as number plates previously issued by excise office removed by authorities

ISLAMABAD: As excise and police officials in the capital conduct a city-wide campaign to remove unauthorised, fancy, and ‘applied for’ number plates, some excise officials are themselves using the hitherto ‘prohibited’ number plates.

The revelation comes amidst rising complaints that officials had been removing older number plates issued by the excise department from vehicles plying the capital’s roads.

The traffic police had launched an awareness campaign against the use of ‘fancy’ and ‘applied for’ number plates on the orders of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan earlier this month. However, after the April 15 deadline, police also started removing number plates issued by the excise office, which generated confusion and anger among the public.



However, a visit to the excise department on Tuesday revealed a deeper malaise. A few cars and motorbikes bearing fancy and applied for number plates had been parked in the official car park inside the department.

When asked about these vehicles with unauthorised number plates, Excise and Taxation Officer (ETO) Nisar Ahmed Hunjra claimed that the vehicles had been impounded.



However, the two cars were later driven away by officials from the department while one of them returned shortly thereafter.

In response, Hunjra said they had removed unauthorised number plates from as many 2,300 vehicles on Monday alone (the first day of the crackdown).

Of the vehicles penalised, 300 were official vehicles belonging to various government departments.

Number plates stripped from cars.  PHOTO: EXPRESS

Use new plates

Motorists have also been confused and angry after officials deployed at the 35 spots across the city started removing number plates issued by the excise office.

“Many of the number plates being removed were issued by the excise office itself. They just want to generate revenue by asking hundreds of thousands of people to get new plates,” a visitor to the excise office said on Tuesday.

Confirming that number plates which had previously been issued by the excise office had been invalidated and were being removed, Hunjara said they planned to replace these plates with the new computerised number plates which bear additional security features and are easily readable by the Safe City Project cameras.



Moreover, he said that special counters had been set up, in newly constructed sheds, at the excise office to facilitate motorists applying for computerised number plates.

Hunjra said a new number plate is issued within 10 days of the application. He said fancy number plates bearing registration numbers issued by other provinces were also being removed.

Exorbitant rates

With the new requirement of applying the computerised number plates, a large number of people headed to the excise office to file their applications.

However, when they discovered that the excise office was charging Rs1,300 to issue the new number plates, many applicants complained that the fee was too high.

When asked to comment on public complaints about the issues faced by the public, Excise and Taxation Director Maryam Mumtaz said they were only implementing decisions which had been made at the interior ministry.

She dismissed claims that fee for new number plates had not been raised and the same fee of Rs1,300 was being charged from the applicants. She defended the fee and said that it was not exorbitant.

When asked what were the new features incorporated in the plates to make them more readable and secure, Mumtaz declined to disclose that information.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19^th, 2017.