Temporary registration of vehicles banned

Excise and Taxation Office (ETO) of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) has banned issuance of temporary registration number to vehicles in view of growing terror threats and rising trend in use of fake number plates. According to reliable sources, Interior Ministry has directed the district administration to stop issuance of temporary number-plates in the ICT owing to the growing use of fake number plates.
"The step is also meant for checking the threats of terrorism," said an official. The sources said that the ETO issues temporary number-plates for a period of one month, but most of the people use it for long time, causing security problems. Similarly, ETO office did not maintain proper record of temporary number plates as well as impose small amount of fine over violators, which according to the sources was encouraging the citizens to use the temporary number-pates for long and hence also provide opportunities to fraudulent and terrorists.
It was also revealed that ETO office also failed in introducing security-featured number-plates. If implemented with letter and in spirit, the security-featured number plates and the Motor Vehicles Ordinance would help security agencies in curbing crimes, besides controlling the rising incidents of car lifting in the city. "Motorists mostly use fake and attractive number plates and do not display the number plates given to them by the ETO", he said.
He said that due to fancy and illegal number- plates, discrimination between a legal and fake number plate becomes very difficult. The motorists are not only using number-plates of various sizes in violation of the rules, but also the digits displayed on the plates are so small in size that they cannot be read easily.
The ICT administration had singed an agreement with a firm for the provision of security-featured number plates to the Excise and Taxation office. Under the agreement, it was decided that the company would provide over 100 number-plates every day to the Excise and Taxation office and these number plates will have proper sizes with beautiful shape and quality. Besides, he said that the number-plates would have an identification mark, which would be visible day and night. This mark would not be removed even with the help of some chemical or physical means from the plate, he added.