the goan I network
PANAJI
Dispelling the suspense over whether it is compulsory for vehicle owners to install high-security registration plates (HSRP), the Transport Department said that there will be no penalty for those who don’t do in stipulated time.
The process to get old vehicles (registered before April 2019) fitted with these plates had started three months ago, and had people in a fluster over getting these new plates done.
Officials, however, maintained that everyone would eventually have to get these number plates, in keeping with Supreme Court directives, but that there was no stipulated time within which to get it done, and definitely no penalty.
In fact, officials from the department said on Friday that Real Mazon, the agency employed to fit the number plates, has been given the contract for a good five-year term, and that the process for getting HSRP plates fitted would “go on” till then.
The department has also directed RTO centres not to give more than 50 coupons per session (there are two sessions a day - morning and afternoon) so that there is no chaos at centers like what happened at the Margao centre in October.
When the HSRP rule first came out in September, the department had come out with a list of which vehicle numbers would have to get their plates changed in which corresponding months.
However, since most people were waiting till the last week of the month to get it done, and the entire exercise getting chaotic, the department scrapped this notification and put out another one intimating the public that they did not have to follow the month-wise schedule and could do it as per their convenience.
