What's in a number? Superstition

Many pay up to Rs one lakh to get a number that catches their fancy

Call it superstition, a desire to make a statement or pure showing off, the craze for ‘fancy’ registration numbers of cars or two-wheeers is unabated even as the costs of owning and using such vehicles are increasing, and even after the charges for obtaining such numbers have been raised significantly.

Whether it is worth spending the kind of money spent on obtaining such numbers is a debatable question, but the transport department officials are not complaining.
“Fifty per cent of them are those who believe in things like horoscope, numerology, astrology but there is also a group of people, mostly teenagers, who want the numbers to mark their identities,” says a road transport officer on the yen for such numbers.
While numbers in a series like 7777, 9999 and others are fancied by the lot who have left their ‘fates’ hanging in numbers and stars, numbers like 8055, when painted with particular fonts read ‘BOSS’ have a lot of takers in the youth brigade.

So how much do these numbers cost? Until recently, a fancy registration number under an existing series would cost Rs 3,000, Rs 6,000 and Rs 9,000 for two-wheelers, four-wheeler passenger vehicles and trucks and other heavy vehicles, respectively.

Hike in cost
It would cost Rs 6,000 for a two-wheeler to obtain a number in the next series in advance, while the other two categories of vehicles were required to pay up Rs 25,000.
In an amendment, which came into effect in May this year, all the 12 Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) have been directed to charge more. Now, numbers under the existing series will cost Rs 6,000 for two-wheelers and Rs 20,000 for four-wheeler passenger vehicles and trucks and other heavy vehicles, respectively. And to obtain a number in the next series in advance, it will cost Rs 25,000 for two-wheelers, while the other two categories are required to cough up a handsome Rs 75,000.

Sources, however, revealed that many people come in through agents to get the numbers and end up paying as high as Rs 1,00,000 even for two-wheelers.
Ascending and descending numbers and numbers that add up to nine and the nine series numbers are the most sought after. Officers in the RTOs say, the nine series numbers are the most popular among these, for reasons of superstition.

However, the Rajajinagar RTO officer was quick to point out that these numbers account for the most number of accidents among the ‘fancy’ numbers.
Further, stating that each RTO is allowed to allot only a maximum of 1,000 such numbers, they say that on an average about five to ten registrations of these numbers happen at every RTO.
DH News Service