Govt strapped for cash in new motorcycle number plate remedy

The new plates, which will help battle crime, are being issued only to newly registered vehicles.

KARACHI: If you want to get the new standardised registration plate for your motorcycle, you might have to wait. Because of a shortage of funds, the excise and taxation department is only issuing the plates to motorcycles being registered for the first time.

The project to replace all number plates started earlier this year in a bid to curb crime. Motorcycles that are used by criminals often have no registration plates or customised ones, making it difficult to track down the vehicles and nab suspects.  “We planned to issue the standardised plates to all motorcycles across Sindh. But because of a shortage of funds, we are only issuing them to newly registered vehicles,” Waheed Shaikh, the director of the motor vehicle wing, told The Express Tribune.

So far, a private company has been given two contracts to supply a total of 174,081 plates. Shaikh said that his department will ensure that the plates are good quality. “The series of registration numbers has started with ‘KFW’ and each one costs Rs300,” he said.

Traffic DIG Khuram Gulzar lauded the project and said that it would help battle crime. “It is a very good step as it would help us recognise motorcycles used to violate the law and commit crimes,” he told The Express Tribune. He suggested that every motorcycle in Sindh should have the standardised registration plate. “At the moment, it is difficult to issue new plates to every vehicle. But if the excise department gives a contract for producing the plates on a large scale and starts handing them out when vehicle owners come to pay motor vehicle tax, then all motorcycles will have them within in a year.”

According to the Anti-Car Lifting Cell, 1.9 million motorcycles are currently on the roads of Karachi. Rao Shahid, who is in charge of the cell’s Crime Analysis and Reporting Centre, told The Express Tribune that “thousands of motorcycles across the city have customised number plates which criminals remove or switch.”  He said that the new number plates could significantly help decrease the crime rate only if they are fixed on all two-wheelers across the city.

“The traffic police will have to implement fines strictly and produce the accused before a magistrate,” he said. “Otherwise the standardised number plates will have no real impact.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2012.