BENGALURU: The Bangalore University Post Graduate and Research Students Union has written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah urging him to end the “monopoly” in affixation of High-Security Registration Plates (HSRP) for vehicles registered prior to 2019.
Addressing the media here on Thursday, Lokesh Ram, student activist and union president, said, “As old vehicle number plates are easy to be tampered with, there are high chances of them getting stolen and misused for crimes. To curb this, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has made it mandatory to install HSRP for all old and new vehicles.
While all the new vehicles have this, those registered before 2019 has to be fitted with HSRP. Karnataka has nearly two crore vehicles registered prior to 2019 and the state government’s move to implement the affixation of HSRP, through empanelment of license plate manufacturers will only make way for monopoly and corruption.”
HSRP is an aluminium vehicle number plate that is fixed to vehicles with two non-reusable snap-on locks and will have details like engine number, chassis number that will be stored in a centralised database. Ram alleged that steps were taken discreetly by the state transport department to grant permission to only four companies to affix the number plates on old vehicles.
“There are more than 25,000 families who are in the business of manufacturing number plates in the state. Why should permission be given to only four companies to do the job?” he said. Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said, “I have not yet received any proposal to implement the HSRP for old vehicles.”