Hyderabad: The future of 4,000 new vehicles under BS-III category, which were sold to customers by automobile dealers before March 31, hangs in balance as the temporary registration (TR) for these vehicle was not generated before 11.59 pm of the cut-off date.

Dealers across the state offered special discounts and attractive prices to clear the leftover stock after the Supreme Court of India issued orders to ban sale and registration of vehicles with BS III emission levels from April 1, 2017. They managed to sell 19,000 vehicles of the existing stock of 27,000.

Temporary registrations for the older vehicles by dealers could be made at MeeSeva from 10 am to 10 pm. After a special request by the dealers, MeeSeva authorities extended the time limit by one hour on the last two days of March 2017. But due to technical problems and poor net connectivity, some dealers, especially in rural areas, failed to generate temporary registrations for nearly 4,000 vehicles, a majority of them two-wheelers, auto-rickshaws, auto-trolleys and tractors.

Customers cannot now register their vehicles with the Road Transport Authority as the transport department’s IT wing has upgraded its software to deny temporary registration to BS-III vehicles.

“The dealers had generated invoice, life-tax and insurance certificates on March 31. We are requesting the government to consider the three documents against TR for the permanent registrations of the vehicles. We have approached transport department and written a letter to the government,” said president of the AP and Telangana Automobile Dealers’ Association, Y. Rama Koteswara Rao.

Hyderabad Joint Transport Commissioner J. Pandurang Naik said that the temporary registration provision are being continued in a few states, including Telangana. “States that don’t have the TR system can register such vehicles, considering the generation of life-tax and insurance as the date of sale. But, the Act doesn’t allow it in Telangana state,” he said.

He says the transport department has no power to give exemptions to such vehicles and neither does the state government. “If the state government writes a letter to the central government and the Ministry of Transport allows it, then we can register the vehicles,” he clarified.

No U-turn
27,000
Existing stock of BS-III vehicles.
19,000
Vehicles under BS-III category sold by dealers till March 31 to clear stock.
4,000
Of the vehicles
from the
19,000
were unable to
get temporary
registrations.

Acting on the Apex Court’s orders, RTA officials had stopped the generation of temporary registrations to BS-III vehicles from April 1, 2017
Without TR number, RTA cannot allow any vehicle for permanent registration
No more registrations now as transport department’s IT wing has upgraded software to deny temporary registrations