VIJAYAWADA: The Transport Department will conduct a special enforcement drive from October 18 across Krishna district to curtail the tampering of high security registration plates (HSRP) for vehicles.
Initially, the drive will focus on government vehicles/hired vehicles and a penalty of up to Rs 2,500 will be levied, in case the vehicles are found to be operating without HSRP. In the next phase, the drive will focus on other vehicles.
Deputy Transport Commissioner (DTC) M Purendra on Wednesday said following the directions from the Centre, the State government is implementing an HSRP project since December 11, 2013.
The Ministry of Road Transport has directed vehicle dealers to supply the HSRPs from April 1. However, the guidelines are not being implemented strictly.
“Taking a serious note of the matter, a special enforcement drive will be conducted from October 18. In all, the district has 14,83,978 vehicles including motorbikes and auto rickshaws. Among them, 40 per cent of the vehicles are plying without HSRP,” the DTC informed.
The Centre recently made a mandate stating that all the old vehicles registered after 2015 should have HSRP, he said. The DTC further said that at a recent coordination meeting held under the chairmanship of Collector J Nivas, the department was directed to strictly enforce HSRP.
As part of the drive, steps will be taken to fix HSRP for the government/hired vehicles and official designation plates will be also removed from these vehicles.
The DTC said in Vijayawada, a private firm has been entrusted with the task of fixing HSRP for old vehicles and added that the price of HSRP for two-wheelers is Rs 245, auto-rickshaw (Rs 283), car/Jeep/LMV (Rs 619), heavy vehicles (Rs 645).