Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The craze for fancy vehicle registration numbers, especially for ‘0001’, continued in the city as many people participated in the bidding for the numbers through the centralised Vahan portal on Thursday. As many as two applicants had applied for getting the number ‘0001’ in the MP09 ZB series at the bidding and it was sold at the highest bid price of Rs 3.06 lakh to Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences.
After ‘0001’, the craze for the number ‘0099’ was seen during the online bidding when four applicants participated in the bidding and it was sold at six times higher than its base price. The base price for ‘0099’ was Rs 25,000 but the number was sold for Rs 1.5 lakh.
Not only businessmen, but also politicians of the city have taken an interest in fancy numbers as BJP MLA from Indore-III Akash Vijayvargiya has bought the ‘9999’ number for Rs 26,000 which was available at the base price of Rs 25,000. Similarly, son of Congress MLA Akash Shukla bought ‘9000’ at its base price of Rs 25,000.
Nevertheless, Thursday was the last day for bidding and people could bid for the numbers till 6.30 pm.
According to RTO officials, about 45 numbers were sold through the online bidding and each bidder got a chance to increase the bidding price 24 times.
Along with 0001, people also showed interest in 0007, 0009, 9999, 7777 and some other numbers.
1 bidder faced trouble in bidding for 0001 number
During the online bidding for numbers, there were two bidders for ‘0001’, which included Asha Confectionery and SAIMS. A representative of Asha Confectionery claimed that he tried to increase the bidding price for ‘0001’ but it couldn’t be changed as it was stuck at Rs 306,000. However, RTO officials expressed helplessness by terming it a centralised online bidding system
Confusion over 2 and 4-wheeler categories
With the new system of bidding on the centralised VAHAN portal, there was a common series for two-wheelers and four-wheelers. However, the base value for the same series of the number was less for two-wheelers and more for four-wheelers. RTO officials were also confused over the system when bidding was done on the same number for both categories.
