The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MORTH), Government of India amended Rule 50 of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules 1989 to standardize the form and manner in which registration numbers are displayed across the country. The existing methodology was found to be riddled with flaws, notable amongst them being:

• The common public, in the absence of any standardization and in an attempt to personalize the plates paint the registration marks in any fancy painting, any size, with undesirable monograms etc.
• Tampering with registration plates is very easy, whereby criminals easily replace plates. This also encourages robberies and road based crimes.
• Deceptive / fancy registration plates also create a lot of inconvenience in the identification of vehicles in road based crimes, road rage and / or hit and run cases.
• Under the existing system, all records are manually stored in the Regional Transport Offices / District Transport Offices which makes it very difficult to pull out records if required on an urgent basis. With the implementation of the HSRP scheme, all records pertaining to vehicle owners along with the registration numbers will be digitized thus enabling in the creation of a National repository of records.
• In the existing system, registration plates are fitted by roadside vendors which raises issues about variation in the quality of the Registration Plates. With standardization, the quality of these plates would also improve tremendously thereby leading in an increased life span of the product.

Benefits of HSRP

The HSRP scheme was launched and implemented citing the following benefits:

• Standardization of the number plate display format across the country.
• To digitize data for all vehicles under a unified central body, i.e. the NIC (National Informatics Centre)
• To curb thefts of vehicles and vehicle borne crime since HSRPs could only be issued by the local Registering Authority post due verification.
• To make the Registration Plates Uniform for different vehicles so that new technologies like Laser Identification Recognition Readers can be introduced at a later date.
• To regulate the issuance of Registration Plates so that illegal plates cannot be sold and distributed by miscreants.
• Improvement of the security scenario in the State by assisting law enforcing authorities in tackling road related crimes.