The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) has restarted the scheme to replace hand-painted vehicle licence plates with embossed ones after putting it on hold for two months.

Owners of four- and three-wheelers will be able to get the new plates from Monday. According to the department, the licence plates will show the province number instead of letters denoting the zone where the vehicle was registered.

Last August, the department started installing the digital registration plates on automobiles belonging to the government and diplomatic missions. But the distribution process shut down after the parliamentary Development Committee ordered the government to put the province numbers instead of the name of the zone on them.

“The number plates will now show the province number instead of the name of the zone,” said Tok Raj Pandey, spokesperson for the DoTM, adding that the installation process would start from Province 3.

Vehicle owners can obtain the new licence plates by filling out a form online by going to the department’s official webpage. 

“However, they will have to make a trip to the department’s office in Ekantakuna, Lalitpur to make payment,” Pandey said. 

“We have launched the distribution process on a trial basis. 

The new licence plates will be made mandatory for all vehicles soon.”

The licence plate for a heavy four-wheeler costs Rs3,600. Car licence plates cost Rs3,200, and auto rickshaw and other three-wheeler licence plates cost Rs2,900. The price of a two-wheeler licence plate is Rs2,500.

Pandey said registration plates bearing the province number would be replaced with plates showing the name of the province after the government determines the names of all seven provinces. “Vehicle owners will have to pay an extra charge to get new number plates showing the name of the province.” 

According to the DoTM, a microchip is installed in the embossed number plates which will allow authorities to trace the whereabouts of automobiles. This is expected to be of particular help during emergencies.

Towards this end, the department will install Radio Frequency Identification Centres at the five main entrances into the Kathmandu Valley and major cities elsewhere in the country.

The department has awarded the contract to manufacture the number plates to Tiger IT, a joint venture of US and Bangladesh IT companies. 

The plan to launch embossed number plates was included in the Three-Year Interim Plan 2007-10, but it lay in limbo due to delays in conducting proper studies. 

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) had also intervened in the project following a complaint regarding irregularities in 2010.

The project stalled for almost a decade before a private firm was hired to import the necessary equipment.