Number Plate in India

Yellow Plate / Black Letter

Commercial vehicles , I.E. trucks , buses , tourist


White plate / Black Letters
Private vehicle ( own board )  i.e. cars & motorbike

Format

Plates for private car and two-wheeler owners have a lettering (e.g., PY 01 A 0001). Commercial vehicles such as taxis and trucks have a yellow background and black text (e.g., DL 2C 0001). Vehicles belonging to foreign consulates have white lettering on a light blue background (e.g. 22 UN 14^[2]). The President of India and state governors travel in official cars without licence plates. Instead they have the Emblem of India in gold embossed on a red plate.

[edit]Current format

The current format of the registration index consists of 3 parts

• The first two letters indicate the state to which the vehicle is registered.
• The next two digit numbers are the sequential number of a district. Due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, the numbers were given to the RTO offices of registration as well.
• The third part is a 4 digit number unique to each plate. A letter(s) is prefixed when the 4 digit number runs out and then two letters and so on.

This scheme of numbering has some advantages:

• the State or District of registration of a particular vehicle
• In the case of a police investigation of an accident or vehicle-related crime, witnesses usually remember the initial area code letters — it is then quite simple to narrow down suspect vehicles to a much smaller number by checking the database without having to know the full number.

[edit]Special Formats

In some states (such as the union territory of Delhi, and the state of Gujarat) the initial 0 of the district code is omitted; thus Delhi district 2 numbers appear as DL 2 not DL 02.

The National Capital Territory of Delhi has an additional code in the registration code:

DL 1C AA 1111

Where DL is the two letter code for Delhi (DL). The additional C (for category of vehicle) is the letter 'S' for two-wheelers, 'C' for cars and SUVs, 'P' for public passenger vehicles such as buses, 'R' for three-wheeled rickshaws, 'T' for tourist licenced vehicles and taxis, 'V' for pick-up trucks and vans and 'Y' for hire vehicles. Thus a Delhi-specific example is:

[edit]States

Main article: List of RTO districts in India

All Indian states and Union Territories have their own two-letter code. This two-letter referencing came into action in the 1980s. Before that each district or Regional Transport Officer's office had a three-letter code which did not mention the state. This led to a fair degree of confusion — for example, MMC 8259 could fit in anywhere in the country. To avoid this ambiguity the state code was included along with the district or RTO's office. In some states, such as Maharashtra, licence plates before 1960, when the state was known as Bombay Presidency, bear notations such as BMC.

The newly created states of Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand (from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar respectively), are registering vehicles under their new two-letter codes, while the old numbers registered in the RTO offices of these states under the RTO code of the parent state still stay valid. In 2007, the state of Uttaranchal was renamed Uttarakhand, thus the state code changed from UA to UK.

The Government of India, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the nodal ministry, has formulated strict specifications and enforcement rules for the new High Security Registration Plates (new number plates). The states have recently started introducing them in a phased manner. This standardisation, along with strict enforcement, is expected to bring about a change in law enforcement and in the registration process of vehicles in the country.

The list of two-lettered state codes is as follows:

click here