KARACHI, April 13: The motor vehicle registration (MVR) department has stopped issuing vehicle number plates inscribed with letters ‘GL’ and ‘GA’ for security reasons, it emerged on Wednesday. Sources said that it had also restricted the issuance of GP (govt of Pakistan) and GS (govt of Sindh) number plates for the same reason on the instructions of the home department. These number plates were being issued on a letter from the federal ministry or the Sindh government requesting for a government number plate, they said.

The sources said that these measures had been taken to check the increasing use of vehicles with government number plates in acts of terrorism.

Excise and Taxation Secretary Manzoor Memon confirmed to Dawn that the MVR had stopped issuing GA number plates that used to be issued to vehicles of autonomous bodies such as the PIA, PNSC, KPT, Port Qasim, etc.

Similarly, GL number plates were allowed to vehicles owned by local government. He said that currently there were 3,075 vehicles with GP number plates and 5,389 vehicles with GS number plates in Sindh.

The number plates beginning with letters ‘CD’, which had been reserved for members of foreign missions, were changed to ‘CC’.

These number plates were out of MVR department domain and were exclusively issued by the foreign office, the sources said. The sources in the excise and taxation department said that there was no legal status of certain cars bearing Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait numbers.

The minister of excise and taxation had recently informed the Sindh Assembly during a question hour that number plates of Gulf states were not issued by the excise department and that police should check such cars.

Excise and Taxation Director General Shoaib Siddiqui said that the department had already stopped issuing personalised number plates inscribed with caste names.

The sources said that the rules for issuing government number plates had been made stricter, because vehicles with such number plates usually skipped the attention of law-enforcement agencies on spot check duties.

Besides, vehicles with government number plates found easy access to parking lots of official functions attended by VIPs who could be targeted by terrorists, they said.

MVR Director Dabeer Ahmed said that there was a great demand for choice number serials of newly registered vehicles.

An owner has to pay Rs75,000 extra for numbers 786, 0786 and 110. The department charges Rs50,000 extra for serial numbers such as 1111, 2222, 3333, 4444 and 9999, etc. Vehicle owners asking for serial numbers 111, 222, 333, 444, 999, etc are required to pay Rs25,000 extra.

For serial numbers 001, 007, 009, the department demands Rs20,000 extra.

The sources, however, said that the trend of seeking the serial number of 786 that carried religious significance seemed lately to be reversing.