BENGALURU: The Karnataka state has decided to extend the last date for registration of the High Security Registration Plate (HSRP) upto December 31 this year. The present deadline, its fifth one, expires on Saturday (November 30). This follows a request for the same, made by the transport commissioner’s office to the transport minister and secretary, citing that a significant number of vehicles have not yet installed HSR plates to their vehicles.
A court verdict on the fines to be levied and possible extension, is awaited on December 4.
Simultaneously, the RTOs across the state have been flooded with complaints that people were unable to apply for HSRP through the portal, due to an error in a specific category.
Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy told TNIE, “We are planning to extend the deadline till December 31 this year. Of course, it is also dependent on the court verdict awaited on December 4.”
The High Court is hearing a case pertaining to the deadline extension, and the punitive action to be taken against riders for non-compliance. It is also hearing review petitions from HSRP Manufacturers Association of India, that challenge the Transport Department order of permitting only certain manufacturers to produce HSRP plates.
The Transport Department had, in August 2023, mandated the installation of these tamper-proof registration plates for all vehicles purchased before April 1, 2019. While the deadline was fixed for November 17 last year, and fines were announced for non-compliance, a majority of vehicles are yet to opt for these plates. This has forced multiple extensions.
Meanwhile, RTO officials across the state said that a basic error made by a firm outsourced to carry out data entry work, in 2012, is responsible for thousands of vehicle owners facing problems while trying to register HSRP on the online VAHAN portal.
A senior official explained, “While making the shift of details from physical to digital, in 2012, a data operator filled ‘others’ option in the column where the vehicle model was to be filled.
This is posing a big issue for many people now, as the physical RC copy has a specific name while the online says ‘others’. Due to this mismatch, the system is not permitting many people to register for HSRP.”
Now, the rectification is only possible by the NIC in Delhi. “For a few months now, we get a minimum of 1,000 vehicle users across the state complaining about this issue when they try to register online. So, they come to our office with their physical RC books and we dispatched them to Delhi to rectify the error.
They need to individually rectify it for each of these users. At least 20 per cent vehicles in the state are facing the issue,” he added.