UP's vehicle registration a trouble for dealers

At a time when automobile dealers are expecting a boost in vehicle sales during the festive season, the UP government's transport department has warned the dealers to stop selling vehicles without issuing a registration certificate.

This has prompted both the two- and four-wheeler auto-dealers, in Agra, to launch an advertising campaign to warn their prospective customers of the policy change.

According to the transport department sources, an order had been issued in pursuance of the directives issued by the UP High Court, which had instructed the transport department, under the Central Motor Vehicles Act 1989 (section 42), to enforce this policy under which no auto-dealer was supposed to hand over the vehicle to a customer unless the vehicle had been duly registered. Failing to this, the trade certificate of the dealer could be revoked.

With 106 dealers of two-wheelers and over 20 dealers of four-wheelers, Agra contributes 100 vehicles a day to the national automobile sales, a figure that climbs up to more than 300 vehicles during festive offers, introduced by the automobile companies from time to time.

Though most of the vehicles were filed for registration on the spot by the dealers, almost negligible number of registration certificates were issued on the day of purchase. The customers were allowed to take out the vehicle without a registration plate, resulting in a large number of vehicles plying on the city roads without registration numbers.

But following the notice issued by the transport department to the dealers, the auto-sales are bound to drop as the local automobile dealers find it difficult to ensure the issue of registration numbers on the same day of the vehicles sale.

This is due to the bureaucratic tangle involved in the registration process that causes a delay of 2-3 days after the sale, before the vehicle could be issued a registration certificate.

The dealers said most of the two-wheelers were sold and delivered within an hour or two of the customer's arrival at the dealership and it was not possible to issue registration numbers to the vehicle in such a short time.

They said no vehicle buyers were willing to pay extra for a temporary registration number. Moreover, in the competition to sell more and more vehicles during the short festive season, the dealers would either have to pay the cost of temporary registration out of their own commission or lose their sales, they said.

The dealers demanded the transport department should either expedite the vehicle registration process or open its own counters at the dealerships where the vehicle could be registered and issued a registration certificate on the day of purchase itself.

Otherwise, the dealers shall be forced to oppose these directives of the department as they were against their business interests.