What is Vehicle License plate or Number Plate ?

What is Vehicle License plate or Number Plate ?

Answer:

A vehicle license plate is the identity of that particular vehicle.

In India all auto vehicle have a metal plate attached at front and back of a vehicle with an official registration number embossed on it which is called as vehicle “license plate” or “number plate”.

India is country with multiple states and union territories and every state has multiple districts.Every district has its own Regional Transport Office (RTO) which handles registration of new vehicles of that district.

Indian auto vehicle license plate has a special pattern in which all alphabets and digits have special purpose.

Let us breakdown a most common number plate pattern that is seen on Indian vehicles.

Image-1 License plate in india

Above number plate is divided in 4 parts.

Part- 1

First 2 alphabets (MH) indicate the state or union territory to which vehicle is registered .

Example: Maharashtra-MH, Rajasthan-RJ, Delhi-DL,Gujarat-GJ, etc.

Part-2

Next 2 digit number is the district code.it is the sequential number of district to which the vehicle is registered.

In above pic digit 12 is district code of pune in Maharashtra state so MH-12.

Part-3

Next should be the 4 digit number as shown in image-2 below, but due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, a series code is added in number plate, so we see 2 alphabets (DE in above image-1) called series code or series number which can be arranged in many ways ranging AA – ZZ.

Image - 2 no series code 

Part-4

And finally the 4 digit unique (1433 on image-1) number on each plate which completes the License plate.

SPECIAL FORMAT PATTERN

Few states and union territories like Delhi , Gujarat  follow special format pattern in which initial ‘0’ of district is omitted and category letter is added in place of it.

C stand for Cars & SUVs

Various categories are,

S for 2 wheelers,

E for Electric vehicles,

C for Cars & SUVs,

P for passenger vehicles,

R for 3 wheeler Rickshaws,

T for tourist licensed vehicles,

V for vans & pick-up trucks,

Y for vehicles on hire.

P for passenger vehicle

INDIAN MILITARY FORMAT

Military of India follows a unique system of its own and these vehicles are registered with ministry of defense, New Delhi.But if you see an upward arrow on an vehicle license plate it means its a military vehicle.

Upward arrow represent military vehicle

Significance of colour on number plate in next post ?