Buses ply with same registration numbers
Kochi: Having similar registration numbers for vehicles of the same company may be considered elegant and stylish. One company can have similar numbers like KL-07-AC-555 and KL-07-AD-555. But what if the registration numbers of two or more vehicles, or specifically buses, are identical? Far from being elegant, one of them will have to face the axe.
The state has been witnessing incidents of buses with identical numbers operating between Kerala and Karnataka. It needed a burglar, who was being taken to Coimbatore in connection with an inter-state theft, who thought it appropriate to put the police on the alert as he called the attention of the sleuths to two luxury buses operating through Kerala having the same registration number.
The baffled police officers informed their higher-ups and the top cops in the city police are now probing the matter.
The motor vehicles department has also been roped in, as the scam involves looting the exchequer of a few lakhs for the purpose of tax evasion.
It is learnt that groups which operate inter-state buses between the cities of Kerala and Bengaluru have been using identical registration numbers for two or three buses, so as to avoid tax.
Most of these buses, which are registered in Karnataka, usually slip through the motor vehicle inspectors in Kerala, as the vehicles are not seen together. Having identical numbers lets the bus groups evade up to Rs 1.2 lakh every year, according to MVI sources.
“Inter-state vehicles usually register in Karnataka to avoid the mandatory remittance of welfare fund to the labour department in Kerala. It would have been easier to spot if the buses were registered in Kerala,” said a motor vehicle inspector.
Police and the motor vehicle department are now planning to check the log book at Walayar gate to collect the entry and exit details of each inter-state bus and are hoping to put a lid on the grand-scale tax evasion.
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