Kochi: Lamborghini owner spends ₹45 lakhs on fancy 0007 number plate after intense auction

To quote Shakespeare for petrolheads, what's in a number plate? A lot, apparently, as people are willing to spend lakhs of rupees on them.

 

 

A private software company, reportedly from Kakkanad's technology hub Infopark, has recently won a fierce bidding war on the Motor Vehicle Department's (MVD) Parivahan website for ownership of a fancy number plate, KL07 DG 0007. The winning bid, a whopping ₹45.99 lakhs, is estimated to be the highest ever paid for a fancy number plate in Kerala, as per The Hindu. It was purchased for a Lamborghini Urus that is currently registered with the Ernakulam RTO, costing over ₹4 crore.

 

 

 

 

The bidding process begins with a base payment of ₹25,000. Five parties, including the software company, completed the payment to begin the Parivahan auction on Monday. With no set upper limit and a minimum increment value of ₹1000 at a time, the auction quickly got heated, leaving two finalists. 

 

 

 

The assignment of the number plate will now take place only after the entire bid amount has been paid.

 

 

 

 

In a similar fashion, reports say yet another fancy number plate in the same series, the KL07 DG 0001, had been sold to an individual hailing from Piravom. This number plate, however, came at a base rate of ₹1 lakh, owing to the increased popularity of 0001 numbers. The winning bid was for ₹25.52 lakhs.

 

 

 

 

According to a government notification, there currently exists six categories of  fancy numbers with base prices ranging from ₹3000 to ₹1 lakh. As the Parivahan website shows, from Monday to Saturday every week, anyone opting for a fancy number plate can pay the base price to enter the auction, which continues until the following Monday. In the event of no other bids for a 10-minute period, the original bidder wins the right to pay and acquire the number.

 

 

 

 

As per a 2023 RTI reply quoted in The Hindu, from 2017-22, the Ernakulam RTO contributed as much as ₹11.84 crore to the State exchequer from auctions for fancy number plates.

Business