According to a press report, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has blocked access to the Transport Mission Mode Project’s application ‘Vahan’ for vehicle registration, on a directive from the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. As the deadline for the integration of the High-Security Registration Plate (HSRPs) has passed, the registration of new vehicles since 2nd of May, 2019 has been put on hold.
On 4th April in a meeting in Delhi on the integration of the registration plate with the ‘Vahan’ App, the Joint Secretary, MVL, MoRTH took a decision & this action was taken. All states except Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana cannot issue Registration Certificate (RC) for new vehicles. The other three aforementioned states use their own software instead of ‘Vahan’ and can issue RC to new vehicles.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highway (MoRTH) has entrusted the automobile manufacturers with the task of issuing the security registration plate, including the third registration mark. On average, 3,000 new vehicles are registered in the state of Kerala on a daily basis at their 79 Regional Transport Offices (RTO) and sub-Regional Transport Offices (SRTO). As the NIC has blocked access to ‘Vahan’ database, even new temporary permit are not able to be issued.
All the State Governments had been issued a circular regarding the fitment of HSRP number plates and the dealerships are required to update the security codes of each number plate on ‘Vahan’ portal. According to an official mandate, all new cars manufactured from 1st April, 2019 must have HSRPs compulsory. Only Maruti Suzuki has come up with the new registration plate among other automobile manufacturers.