Registration woes: Blockage of dealers’ IDs dampen enthusiasm of new car owners

Buyers of new vehicles are upset following the dampening enthusiasm to rejoice with their families to travel freely across the country as the registration numbers of their vehicles have not been issued despite having made the required payment to the dealers at the time of purchase.

The major reason behind the non-issuance of registration numbers is that the Transport Department has blocked the IDs of some dealers.

Hundreds of new vehicles are still parked in the garages as the owners are hesitant to take them out on the roads.

They fear being confronted by government personnel during checking on highways in Punjab and neighbouring states.

Traffic police personnel have also highlighted the inconvenience being faced by them as they have to scan through various documents to establish the genuineness of claims made by the owners of vehicles.

On the other hand, the authorities in the Transport Department have claimed that the dealers concerned have started rectifying discrepancies notified to them and their IDs would be unblocked in due course of time. The IDs of as many as 372 transport and non-transport vehicle dealers had been blocked over non-compliance of the guidelines and directions of the department. Some families had purchased new luxury cars and SUVs, but were disappointed to learn that registration numbers would not be issued at the time of delivery.

Malerkotla RTO Gurmit Kumar Bansal said the IDs of four vehicle dealers of the district had been blocked as they had not complied with the instructions of the Transport Department.

“As far as our district is concerned, we have started the process of restoration of facilities after receiving necessary documents from three agencies, whereas the fourth dealer is not transacting any business these days,” said Bansal.

Balvir Singh, a traffic wing personnel, said the situation had increased the workload of traffic teams intercepting vehicles without number plates.

“We have to go through all documents presented by the owners of vehicles not bearing any registration number to verify genuineness of claims being made by them,” said Singh while saying that the frequency of intercepting without number vehicles had increased during past weeks.

The failure to deposit government approval, adequate security deposit, trade certificate, letter of undertaking, GST, TAN , TIN number or self-audit report were found to be the reasons behind the blockage of IDs. Buyers have urged the government to either impress upon the dealers concerned to get their IDs unblocked or make some alternative arrangements to issue registration numbers.