Kerala businessman wins fancy car number for Rs 31 lakh

A businessman in Kerala has won the bidding for a fancy registration number for his new luxury car for Rs 31 lakh, almost the price of another base model luxury car.

Kerala Motor Vehicles department officials said that it was the highest bidding for a fancy number in Kerala.

Balagopal S Nair, managing director of Devi Pharma, has clinched the registration number ‘KL-01-CK-1’ after a tightly fought bidding on Monday for his Porsche 718 Boxster priced around Rs 1.5 crore.

Balagopal, who has a fascination for fancy numbers, beat his own record of Rs 18 lakh in 2017 for his Land Cruiser. Over the past many years, Balagopal had won many fancy numbers through bidding.

Stringent norms

Apart from Balagopal, two other persons, learnt to be NRI businessmen, also booked the registration number ‘KL-01-CK-1’. One among them quoted up to around Rs 26 lakh and the other person quoted up to Rs 11.5 lakh.

Earlier, there were allegations of widespread corruption in the auctioning of registration numbers in Kerala. Some individuals used to participate in auctions frequently and later make an unholy settlement with the other participants. Hence, the procedures have been made stringent.