Nepal
The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) has resumed installing the embossed number plates on vehicles after another halt.
However, with the new licence plates being installed on only 35,000 vehicles in six years DoTM now faces a seeming impossible task to fix the plates on 2.5 million vehicles by mid-December 2023.
Ishwari Datta Paneru, the department spokesperson, conceded that installing the embossed number plates on all vehicles within the stipulated period would not be possible.
While the law stipulates that every vehicle requires an embossed number plate, it has yet to be made mandatory, Paneru said.
The installation of embossed number plates on vehicles has been embroiled in legal wrangling, with a public interest litigation being filed in the court, demanding that the licence plates should be in the Nepali language. However, the court has since given the go-ahead for the installation of the number plates in the English language.
DoTM extended the time for installation of embossed number plates for another two and a half years after the first deadline expired in May last year.
The department signed an agreement with Tiger IT on May 17, 2016 for the supply and installation of number plates. Besides the supply of 2.5 million sets of embossed number places, the contract requires the vendor to create software, including a programme to connect vehicle owners to the new vehicle registration system.
The software is already ready and operational. Similarly, the contract agreement requires the installation and operation of machinery for printing the number plates.
The embossed number plates, DoTm claims, would prevent vehicle theft, revenue evasion, and criminal activities by electronically monitoring the vehicles through the tracking devices installed at various locations in the country.
DoTM is installing the tracking devices at 10 locations at Nagdhunga, Jagati, Nagarjun, Pharping, Jorpati in Kathmandu Valley, and in Itahari, Pathalaiya, Butwal, Kohalpur and Attaria outside the valley.
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