The approaching vehicles are stopped one by one at a picket set up a few hundred feet near a busy intersection.
Here, the officers of the motor vehicle registration branch of the Punjab Excise Department ask the commuters for their vehicle registration books and then examine the number plates on their cars, motorcycles or rickshaws. Traffic wardens are also seen assisting them and managing the vehicular flow on the road that has been partially occupied by the barriers used for the picket.
In some cases, the officers remove the number plates and in others give warnings to the vehicle owners to install the computerised number plates issued by the excise department. No other number plates are allowed. If someone is using these, they must replace them as soon as possible.
The officers of the traffic police have the option to challan the users of unapproved number plates and fine the violators. The people who can produce receipts of application fee submitted to the department and prove they are waiting for the number plates to be delivered are spared.
Sajid Malik, 45, a sales manager at a pharmaceutical firm, is one of the many commuters who was stopped by the concerned officers and questioned over the use of number plates not issued by the excise department. He has a story to tell, and complains that he tried to get the required number plates but could not because there was a dispute going on between the department and the international company that was producing and supplying these number plates. As the supply was suspended he had to look for some other option.
"I got one from a shop on McLeod Road that resembles the approved model. The guy told me that the department had allowed them to issue these plates till the time the dispute is over and supply resumes," he adds.
"No doubt, a large number of vehicles carry number plates that resemble the original ones but the issue is that they do not carry the machine-readable embedded data," says Younis Gill, an advisor on property tax and motor vehicle registration and taxation issues.
According to Gill, over the last one month, the number of applicants has risen considerably, as the concerned authorities started a crackdown after the passage of the grace period.
He explains that the computerised number plates are required mainly for the reason that these can be read by cameras installed for automated traffic control and detection of violations. Similarly, these can be read and decoded by cameras installed all over the city for security reasons.
"The system has been mainstreamed and the flaws that would hinder the timely supply of number plates to applicants through courier service have been removed to a great extent. As it would take the department a lot of time to issue number plates, many of the applicants could not be reached as they had changed address during the period."
There is a general perception that only the vehicles registered in a particular year and afterwards have to carry these number plates and not those registered earlier.
Adeel Amjad, In-charge, Number Plates, at the Punjab Excise Department says each and every vehicle registered in the province shall have to do the needful -- i.e., replace the unapproved number plates with the approved ones. "Proper legislation has been done in order to make the use of approved number plates mandatory and to prescribe penalties and fines for those violating the rule.
"The grace period is over," he declares. "Now the authorities will be strict and not spare anyone using fake or counterfeit number plates."
However, Amjad confirms that there is backlog which has been caused by the undelivered number plates returned by the courier companies. "It is being cleared fast. Those [people] who have not yet received their number plates can file a complaint with the department.
"The applicants can also get the number plates from the window set up at the department."
The process of applying for computerised number plates is simple. One can fill the prescribed form and submit it with the proof of ownership and payment of token tax till June 2017. Charges for issuance of number plates for a car, van, truck etc are Rs1,200 and for a motorbike, scooter, rickshaw Rs750.
Owners of new vehicles can apply for registration at the point of sale instead of going to the excise and taxation department. The dealers, or showroom owners, will now order license plates for their customers from their own outlets and provide them the number plates. So, it will not be possible that the buyer of a new vehicle can use the vehicle for months without getting it registered.
Ali Nawaz, a spokesman for City Traffic Police, says using illegible or fake number plates is a violation and traffic police has been acting against these for long. "But now, it has become a matter of compulsion as these number plates will be used to curb crime and traffic violations."
Nawaz also says that very often it is not possible to stop a large number of violators and challan them. With the help of the sensitive cameras and machine readable number plates, this problem shall now be resolved, as each and every violator will receive a fine slip at their home addresses.
Sources in the Punjab police reveal that the cameras installed in the city under the Safe City Project shall have the capacity to read the number plates and identify the violators of traffic rules etc. The technology is called Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and it uses optical character recognition on images to read vehicle registration plates. It is used by law enforcing authorities around the world for law enforcement including to check if a vehicle is registered or not.