• Excise officials ask owners to replace existing vehicle registration booklets with security-enabled smart cards
• Warn of action against vehicles that continue to display old number plates after deadline

KARACHI: Owners of over three million old private and commercial vehicles will have to spend thousands of rupees to obtain new registration number plates printed with the Ajrak design for their four-wheelers within a short span of around three months as the Sindh government has made the replacement of the registration number plates mandatory, it emerged on Wednesday.

The Sindh excise and taxation secretary, through a public notice, has notified all owners of vehicles — both private and commercial — that the old number plates had been discontinued and they were required to be replaced with new retro-reflective number plates by April 3, 2025.

However, the decision to give such a short deadline — less than 100 days (excluding weekly holidays) — raised many eyebrows as the excise and taxation department lacked the manpower to deal with over 28,000 owners/vehicles on a daily basis and to issue them their new number plates to complete the task, ie to replace number plates of over three million vehicles, till April 3.

A vehicle owner has to pay Rs2,450 for the new number plate while the Sindh government is expected to get over Rs7.35 billion in revenue.

According to the notice, all private vehicles must now display white number plates featuring a design inspired by the Sindhi Ajrak, while commercial vehicles would be required to have yellow number plates with the same Ajrak design.

It further said that the replacement of the old registration number plates was mandatory as the yellow number plates on private vehicles and black number plates on commercial vehicles would no longer be valid after April 3.

Owners of the vehicles had been directed to apply for and obtain the new security-featured number plates at the earliest by visiting any motor registration authority of the excise department.

Vehicle safety

The public notice said that the decision aimed at enhancing vehicle safety measures and ensuring uniform identification.

Excise and Taxation Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla told Dawn that the department had in the first phase started issuing the retro-reflective number plates for the new vehicles with the new security feature in April 2022.

“Now, we have launched the second phase for the old vehicles,” he said adding that no additional fee was imposed for the new number plates.

He said that the action would be taken against the owners of the vehicles with old number plates after the April 3 deadline during snap checking on roads.

“The action will include impounding of the vehicle,” he warned.

He said the new number plates got several security features, aluminium sheets, bar code and the registration number that could easily be read even during night-time.

Mr Chawla said that in the first phase, the new number plates had been given upon registration of new vehicles.

He said that the department had launched the second phase as there was no significant backlog of new registration number plates.

The excise minister said that there were over three million old private and commercial vehicles which would require new registration plates.

He said that there was no shortage of new number plates and advised the owners to visit the motor registration offices for the new plates.

He said that the process of obtaining new registration number plate had been simplified and the plate could be obtained in two days after submission of an application.

The excise minister said that the work was also underway to start online service for delivery of the new security-featured number plates at homes of vehicle owners.

He said that the decision to hire the services of a suitable courier company would be taken shortly.

Smart Cards

In another public notice, it was also notified that the existing vehicle registration booklets were being replaced with the new security-featured smart cards.

The smart cards incorporate advanced security features to prevent tampering with, counterfeiting and fraudulent vehicle registrations.

“Effective from April 3, 2025, the current vehicle registration booklets will no longer be valid,” the notice said.

The department advised the vehicle owners to visit any motor registration authority to obtain smart card before the stated deadline.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2024