New rates finalised: Get your number plates from today

New rates: Rs1,200 for cars, jeeps, commercial vehicles; Rs400 for motorcycles and Rs550 for rickshaws.

LAHORE:

The Excise and Taxation Department will start issuing computerised number plates today (Thursday) after the government approved new rates on Wednesday. According to an official notification, the new rates are Rs1,200 each for number plates of a car, jeep or commercial vehicle; Rs400 each for motorcycles; and Rs550 each for rickshaws.

The number plate charges will be added to the registration fee of vehicle.

The department started dispatching number plates to the districts on Tuesday. In September, the department had asked the government to set the prices at the following rates: cars Rs1,050 (cost Rs1041); commercial vehicles Rs1,070 (cost Rs1061); bikes Rs720 (cost Rs712); rickshaws Rs750 (Rs741). From November 20 to December 10, vehicles being registered in the province will be issued number plates on the same day.

Owners of vehicles registered earlier than November 20 and after December 10, will get their number plates through courier service.

A department official, requesting anonymity because he is not authorised to talk to the media, said that 1.2 million vehicles were registered annually in the province, 80 per cent of which were motorbikes. “We will have to subsidise number plates for motorcycles. The department will deplete its fund eventually. We will have to request Finance Department for a bailout package,” the official said.

Excise and Taxation Headquarters Director Qadir Ahmad Bajwa said that these rates were not what they had proposed. “However, we will issue the number plates on these rates,” he said.

To a question about whether the department would need a bailout package, Bajwa said they had not yet calculated how the subsidy would burden the department. “It is too early to comment on whether or not we will be requesting the Finance Department for a bailout package,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2014.