Popularity of vanity numbers dips in district after hike in reserve fee

JALANDHAR: The Punjab state transport department’s decision to hike the minimum reserve fee price for vanity numbers has backfired in the district as popularity for VIP numbers have dipped sharply in the district with only 18% numbers finding buyers since January 2014.

After changes in the process, the district transport office (DTO) has not received applications for much sought after numbers including 0001 to 0009 and 0786. Post revision, the 270 fancy numbers were available in the range of `10,000 to `5 lakh.

Following the directions from higher authorities, the DTO will hold an online auction of 270 numbers from the CP series of PB08 vanity numbers on Monday.

“In the face of the declining interest, the transport department had decided to decrease the minimum reserve fee for vanity numbers, but as of now the DTO has not received any notification in this regard and Monday’s auctions will be held on same (hiked) price,” said a senior DTO official.

As per the information, DTO had sold only one number – 0001 of the CJ series –which received `5,11,000. But all numbers from 0002 to 0009 have remained unsold for the past 14 months.

During the last online auction for CN series which was held on January, received only 39 applications out of which only 29 applicants visited DTO office to buy those numbers.

Department had managed to sell only around 240 numbers out of total 1,350 of these vanity numbers in five online auctions held since January 2014 in the district.

Following the directions from state transport department, bidders wanting to buy 0001 had to shell out a minimum of `5 lakh instead of `50,000. Similarly, one has to pay `2.5 lakh instead of `10,000 for (0002 to 0009) series. In same way series from 0010 to 0099 number has been hiked to `1 lakh from `3,000 thousand earlier due to hike in the reserve fee for other VIP numbers.

However, district transport officer RP Singh said that though the number of bidders had declined due to high reserve prices but even then the department had earned substantial money from online auction with the high prices compensating for the lower number of bidders.