January 28, 2007	Sunday	Muharram 08, 1428

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PESHAWAR, Jan 27: The NWFP Excise and Taxation department has planned a campaign to check violations of rules relating to the computerised and personlised number plates of vehicles.

The campaign to be launched on February 1, across the province is aimed at bringing uniformity in number plats in accordance with the law, E&T director-general Nasir Khan told Dawn.

He said that many vehicle owners who had been issued personlised number plates were violating the set guidelines of the department.

The official said that many people had also fixed personlised number plates without getting registered with the department.

“This is a violation of the law and it deprives the provincial kitty of a significant amount,” said the official.

It may be mentioned that the E&T department charges Rs25,000 for issuing personlised number plates.

The department imposes fine on vehicles with wrong or non-computerised number-plates, unregistered engine number and private cars being used as taxis.

Despite having powers to fine and recovery on the spot and power to confiscate the vehicles, the excise and taxation department has failed to curb illegalities.

The department had launched a drive against vehicles with non-computerized number-plates few months back, but it had not been very fruitful so far to curb such violations.

The vehicles with different number-plates, some unregistered cars with APL-6 and APL-7 are plying unchecked on the roads.

According to the rules, an unregistered vehicle can not be run on road for a single minute, but despite the laws and penalties such irregularities are going unchecked, said a resident of Gulberg.

“The number of enforcement staff at various districts is still low and shortage of staff at times is the reason for lack of curbing such violations”, said officials.