The number plate game

First the good news. Thanks to a judgment delivered last week by the Supreme Court, we will in a few months be fitting our cars 8212; or an...

First the good news. Thanks to a judgment delivered last week by the Supreme Court, we will in a few months be fitting our cars 8212; or any vehicle for that matter 8212; with number plates that have a range of security features. The change is long overdue. We have been driving around in such advanced cars but when it comes to their number plates, we have a system that is no different from what was there in the time of our grandfathers. Naturally, thieves have no difficulty in changing the number plates of stolen cars.

In order to fix that problem, the new number plates would be fastened with 8220;non-removable snap lock fitting system8221;. Nobody would be able to paint a different number either as the original would have been embossed in an imperishable form. There would also be a third registration mark in the form of a self-destructive sticker on the windshield. And the number plate itself would have an identification number, which would be laser branded in one corner, to ensure that its manufacturer could always be traced. The manufacturers would in turn have to maintain a record of the buyer of every number plate.

To be sure, such a transparent and accountable system of number plates is already in force in many countries. But the exact system we are going to have is apparently even more advanced as it puts India in a small category of 16 countries. Impressed? Well, you may actually wonder where India is heading if you see the names of the countries figuring in that category: Armenia, Columbia, Curacao, Ethiopia, Iraq, Mali, Palestine, Uganda and so on. What sets apart these 16 countries from other bigger or more developed ones is the adoption of chromium hologram as one of the security features for number plates.

When the policy decision to introduce high security number plates was taken by India three years ago, the then minister for road transport and highways, B.C. Khanduri, chose to include chromium hologram in the prescribed features. That was despite the fact that none of the developed countries had felt the need for such an add-on. Khanduri8217;s justification was that cars in developed countries were anyway equipped with sophisticated tracking devices. So what we could instead do, according to him, was go further than them in number plates.

Whatever the validity of his reasoning, Khanduri8217;s decision to apply chromium hologram to number plates smelt of a scam. This is because at the time he took that decision there was only one manufacturer of chromium hologram in the whole world 8212; Kurz of Germany. Thus, the choice made by India in 2001 was all set to boost Kurz8217;s business. After all, it is the first major country to opt for holographic number plates.

The suspicion of a scam strengthened when Khanduri8217;s ministry subsequently recommended to all states that, unlike in developed countries, they should not allow a free market in the supply of number plates. On the pretext of ensuring greater security, the Centre had laid down that the number plates should be fitted right in the premises of the Road Transport Office. As a corollary, the Centre proposed that a single manufacturer should be selected for each state though a tender process, that too for a term of 15 years. And then it slipped in a stipulation that only those who have experience of supplying such number plates in at least three countries should be eligible to bid in the tender.

This three-country clause was tailor-made to ensure that the Indian market was open only to a clutch of four European companies that had a tie-up with Kurz and sold holographic number plates to the 16 countries mentioned earlier. The size of India8217;s market prompted other manufacturers to start making chromium hologram as opposed to the more commonly available aluminium hologram. But the three-country clause in the tender conditions put paid to their chances of competing with Kurz in India. One would have thought there was no way such a blatantly discriminatory clause would survive judicial scrutiny.

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The bad news is that the Supreme Court belied this expectation. It upheld Khanduri8217;s scheme in entirety. Allowing the government to take refuge in its policy discretion, the court passed off the three-country clause as a bona fide concern to get the best man. The companies associated with Kurz alone are, thus, eligible in the tenders that are due to be opened in various states in the next few weeks. Between themselves, they will have a monopoly across the country for 15 years. Sure, monopoly is no more a dirty word. But this is state-conferred monopoly in an area where there is little justification for it.