Punjab: Blocking dealers’ identity dampens enthusiasm of new car owners

Punjab: With the excitement of travelling freely with their families across the country getting dampened, new vehicle buyers are upset as their vehicles have not been issued registration numbers despite making the required payments to dealers at the time of purchase. The main reason behind the non-issuance of registration numbers is that the transport department has blocked the IDs of some dealers. Hundreds of new vehicles are still parked in garages as owners are hesitant to take them on the roads. They fear confronting government personnel during checks on highways in Punjab and neighbouring states. Traffic police personnel have also highlighted the inconvenience they are facing as they have to scan various documents to ascertain the genuineness of claims made by vehicle owners. On the other hand, transport department officials have claimed that the concerned dealers have started rectifying the discrepancies reported to them and their IDs will be unblocked in time. The ID cards of 372 transport and non-transport vehicle dealers have been blocked for not following the transport department guidelines. Some families who bought new luxury cars and SUVs were disappointed when they found out that the registration numbers were not issued at the time of delivery. Malerkotla RTO Gurmeet Kumar Bansal said the identity cards of four vehicle dealers in the district have been blocked as they did not follow the transport department’s directions. “As far as our district is concerned, we have started the process of restoring the facilities after getting the required documents from three agencies, while the fourth dealer is not doing any business these days,” Bansal said. Traffic wing personnel Balveer Singh said the situation has increased the workload on traffic teams who stop vehicles without number plates. “We have to check all the documents submitted by owners of vehicles without registration numbers to ascertain the veracity of the claims being made by them,” Singh said. He said the incidents of stopping vehicles without number plates have increased in the last few weeks. Failure to submit government approval, adequate security deposit, trade certificate, undertaking letter, GST, TAN, TIN number or self-audit report were found to be the reasons behind the ID getting blocked. Buyers have urged the government to either put pressure on the concerned dealers to get their IDs unblocked or make an alternate arrangement for issuing registration numbers.