Bhubaneswar: In a huge relief for commuters, the Transport Commissioner-cum-chairman State Transport Authority (STA) on Monday said that vehicle owners who have applied for High-Security Registration Plates (HSRP) online before the timeline will be exempted from enforcement checking.
No fine will be imposed if vehicle owners produce an online booking slip during the checking. The penalty amounts to Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 for different vehicles.
“It is observed that due to the sudden rise in online booking for fitment of HSRP, some of the vehicle owners are facing difficulties in getting a slot for fitment of HSRP within the timeline. It is, therefore, ordered that in case any vehicle owner has applied for HSRP online before the timeline applicable to his vehicle, he shall be exempted from enforcement checking provided he produces an online booking slip during the checking,” the STA said in a notification.
On September 15, the STA announced that fines would be collected from the people, who have not fixed HSRP on their vehicles with registration numbers ending with 1, 2, 3 and 4 from October 1.
The government has given October 31 ultimatum to vehicles, whose registration numbers end with 5 and 6; November 30 for vehicles ending with 7 and 8 numbers; and December 31 for vehicles ending with 9 and 0 registration numbers.
The HSRP has been made mandatory for all classes of old vehicles which were registered prior to April 1, 2019, in the state. The STA facilitated the online booking for HSRPs from June 1 through authorised vendors.
Earlier, the HSRP was made mandatory for those registered on or after April 1, 2019.
The HSRPs are made of aluminium and these plates are tamper-proof and come with two non-reusable locks. The number plates have a chromium-based Ashoka Chakra on the left along with IND written on it. The vehicle identification number is laser encoded, which makes it easy to be scanned and difficult to be tampered with.
